My Heart Beating Madness
by michellemybelle25
Summary: Madness is such a subjective thing.
1. Chapter 1

All right, guys, this is probably going to be the last story I post for a bit. This baby is on her way in a couple of weeks or less, fingers crossed she holds off until after my big performance! My mother is convinced I'm going to go into labor during the show, LOL! We'll see what happens! Anyway, this is something dark I wrote last summer told from Erik's POV. I hope you enjoy it!

SUMMARY: Madness is such a subjective thing.

"My Heart Beating Madness"

Madness is such a subjective thing. In all my years on this earth, I can argue that point with valid conviction and come out a champion. I've been called mad before, but I _never_ perceived insanity in myself or my eccentric actions. How could they be the result of a person without correct wits when I'd meticulously planned each step to the tee? I committed murder rationally and lucid, and _to me_, my reasoning always made sense. Others would argue I reacted rash, but to the normal world, morality holds sway. The sense of guilt and a moral compass that distinctly points to right or wrong. I have none of those things; does that make me insane? A sociopath because I could strangle the living breath from a man's lips and not _care_ I'd done it? …_Subjective_.

If you consider yourself a moral person, you _must_ condemn me for the sins I've committed. You will dub them unforgiveable and heinous, but in the back of your mind, you will wonder _why_. Humanity always seeks a reason, or they dub madness. I must give _you_ a reason why I killed a man…? But why is such an underlying current pertinent? Perhaps I just enjoy the concept of playing God, or I like the feel of an untarnished throat between my hands. Perhaps I delight in the look of horror my victims always give before life's exit. _You_ would hear such explanations and again push claims of madness. But I feel you are missing the bigger picture. I am not mad, just selfish. I do not waste time or energy on people who contradict my existence. Not anymore. I have learned that the best place to live is on top of the food chain, and everyone below is expendable if they get in the way of my goals and destined path.

Killing around the opera house had a secondary purpose; it was to prove that _no one_ was immune to my reign. Whether it be man or woman, upper class or lower, _anyone_ could be next if they crossed me.

Joseph Buquet was a prime example. Tattling my secrets, acting the pompous buffoon and knowing far too much. His death made sense. Piangi's death, on the other hand, only had to do with the fact that he stood in my spot. _I_ was supposed to be on that stage, singing with Christine in my opera, and the only way to claim my role was to open the door. Get rid of an unnecessary tenor and fill the void.

Now how can one argue madness if everything was justified in my mindset? …All right, one semi-valid point might exist in what happened to follow. Dragging a reluctant soprano into the depths of hell mid-performance _might_ concur with insanity, but I protest and pose it as an act of _love_ instead. Love with force and manipulation at its culmination might seem extreme in a way, but I wasn't well-acquainted with other options. This appeared my best chance at regaining control of chaos, and I took it.

Christine was the one person who could have dubbed me insane, and she didn't. She struggled against my firm hold the entire journey through the catacombs, whimpering softly like a wounded animal, but she perceived these the actions of a _monster_, not a madman. Viable difference. She believed she could still save herself because a _monster_ bore a broken heart. A madman would have been too far gone to care. And _why_ did she conclude such a thing? Because I dragged with bruising force and yet glanced back at every whimper with a desperation to make certain I did no permanent damage. Perhaps my heart showed in my eyes at those times, but whatever the case, it kept her struggling but not shrieking to the high heavens for freedom. I wondered if I could take that as _compliance_.

My last look back might have given my hope away, and in an urgent need to keep a hold on the scene, I squeezed her forearm tighter and taunted, "Whimper, whimper; all these unhappy sounds to declare your discontent with our current situation. Let us not forget that _you_ brought this upon _yourself_. The only one to blame for a monster's antics is _you_, foolish child. You play blameless so well! It's almost easy to take the fault upon my shoulders and forget that _you_ made me what I am! If I did, I would be equal the fool and deserve every retribution God could deliver, but as it is, _I_ am not the scribe of this traumatic chain of events. You made your path the first time you betrayed me. Every detail now is earned, and the sins hang on _your_ head."

It was easy to cast stones with a companion who lacked any fight of her own. She could have contended and placed guilt in its rightful pegs, but she kept silent except for those whimpers. How it unnerved me!

With a fierce growl, I halted our trek and jerked her closer in the meager glow of my lantern, forcing her gaze to mine. Such blue sapphires, sparkling with un-fallen tears… It was easy to forget just how _beautiful_ Christine was when I was angry and blinded by rage. Was her beauty a sign from God that she could never belong to a monster as ugly as I was? If so, I took it as a challenge to prove otherwise. This _beauty_ would be mine with or without God's consent.

Almost in the vein of my thoughts, Christine cringed and tried to avert her stare. It was fuel to the flames. I laughed cruelly as I accused, "You do not wish to see the monster's face? But _you_ were the one to free it from its cage. _You_ played betrayal and exposed it to the world with your conniving, little hands and your steel-encased heart. _You_ stripped me of my dignity and purloined the guise of illusions I wove. It meant nothing to do as you pleased, but now that this face is no one's but _yours_, it is abominable again. So tell me then, _ange_, why did you do it? Was it only a merciless crusade? Offer me hate when I offered love? Or did your Vicomte concoct this plot point? Was _he_ the mastermind of deception?"

Every idea I spat at her and never thought twice that my deformity was creased in the horror of my wrath. It was ugly already, and anger made it something worse yet. She saw, and I knew little surprise that she trembled and tears finally fell. A corpse's skull was indeed a nightmare to behold.

I made the nightmare more awful yet as I smiled and likely appeared as manic and insane as I knew I wasn't. "Or, and this is my favorite option yet, was this prescribed motion of ripping my mask away supposed to be proof of acceptance on your part? Were you making a choice, Christine, and stating it for all to hear? How masochistic am I to wish so badly to believe my own jest!"

Acceptance and love… I _wanted_ such emotions with every fiber of my being, but Christine's continued horror showed me that it was wasted to pray for fairytale endings. We'd come too far for their sweet favor, and all we had was the trauma we didn't condone. …Fairytales were blasé anyway.

Christine still did not utter a word, her blue gaze flickering between guilt, compassion, fear, and some sort of pleading for remittance. All of it went the way of fairytales as I growled again and yanked her onward.

I was no fool in this scheme, and perhaps if insanity had prevailed, I would have been sloppy in execution, but I was well aware that to keep Christine as I wanted, I needed a legally binding arrangement. Marriage. A union that must be entered into with consent on both sides and mutual understanding. Without a vow and a signature on a license, her dashing Vicomte would always be half a step in our shadow. I was committed to the success of my plan so intently that I already had the license in my possession. Her signature in the face of a witness would make her permanently bound to me for the rest of her days. Perfection.

Christine was ignorant of such details as I brought her below. Perhaps she never considered me cunning enough to devise unbreakable circumstances and reasoned I'd eventually crumble to her tears and whimpers. How naïve!

With never a word, I pulled her toward the room I had at her disposal in my home, and denials were useless when the white silk and lace of a wedding gown rested upon the mattress.

"…Erik. …But what-"

"For my beautiful bride," I crooned and studied her wide-eyed expression. "You needed something suitable for our nuptials, and I confess to a long-standing desire for a _traditional_ wedding. A bride in a white gown." I gave an idle shrug and snapped, "Of course, I'm not sure how far the illusion will stretch. 'White' is _supposed_ to mean innocent and chaste. The virgin bride, but…I guess I'll learn later how many lies my _wife_ carries into our vows. After all, most girls with a _vicomte_ as a prior fiancé abandon the connotation of purity with the correct encouragement. God knows experienced vicomtes do not mind themselves with the symbolism of white, bridal vestments."

Her aghast examination went from the gown's looming presence to me, and she muttered, "I…don't know what you mean."

I wasn't sure if I believed her, but I let it go for the moment. Time for admissions later, but at present, we were on the tick of the clock. Releasing her arm, I went to the mattress and bundled the layers of gown into my arms, more gentle with material than I'd been with her skin, or so the fierce marks on her forearm shouted at me.

"Shall I dress my virgin bride?" I posed and ran heavy eyes along her curves. The mention of such a sin alone thrilled me and sent ripples down my spine. Ah yes, this fire in my veins would finally have what it ached for: something soft to extinguish its burn.

She seemed appalled and edged tentative steps back, but without a door on her side of the room, escape was only a dream. "Please…just leave me be."

"Why?" I demanded. "I could be as gentle as a lamb if only you'd let me. A willing chambermaid readying the mistress for her fine wedding. I need not be cruel with you all the time, Christine."

"Please, Erik…"

"And what do you beg, _ange_? Such a word can be taken with so many interpretations, you know. Do you beg mercy? Freedom? …Or perhaps you beg for my hands upon you? Eagerly undressing and then binding you again in your bridal finery… I could be the tender husband, and it does not have to be an act, not if you are willing."

Oh, and what would I give to _adore_ her as I'd always dreamed, the cognizant slave kneeling at her altar in reverence. She was _everything_; why would she not let me show her that?

"Well?" I pushed when she remained quiet, eyes ducked behind her lashes. "I can tend to you with care or I can strip you viciously. It will be your choice how this dressing is undertaken."

She glanced up with appeasement, tears falling in rapid succession, and though she might have pondered begging onward, she glimpsed a resolve I would not allow to waver. It was a lost battle already. I wanted this moment too much to let it go.

Strolling the meager gap between us, I fisted my hands in the wedding gown for a deep inhalation, my fingers betraying my preferred strength to shake and call me weak. I didn't want her to glimpse such un-confidence. No, I was determined to portray a normal, virile man with veins coated in longing and pretend the true tremors inexperience wrote me didn't exist. I would _not_ seem awkward in this coveted place.

I gave her credit for remaining fixed in her spot even though her shoulders shook with silent sobs and gave her true state of weakness away. She focused blue depths on the white of silk material and would not grant me a single look. It was accusation, and I couldn't fully reason why when I was making intentions clear.

"Turn around," I ordered and desperately sought to retain authority.

Dutiful, she obeyed, her small frame shivering in its slow half-circle as she presented me the clasps and hooks of her costume. Devoted husband as I longed to be, I set the wedding gown upon the carpet and fixed attention on my task. When instruments bowed to my ministrations with barely a caress, to have such metal clasps defeating my first attempts was humiliating. I mumbled a curse that Christine shivered to overhear and adamantly fumbled with the little hooks, desperate not to tear and fully embrace a monster's skill set.

Her shoulders still shook with her tears, but I ignored the details I did not want and worked until the clasps accepted loss and parted to her waist. My desire gazed at the thin boundaries of white undergarments and ached to bypass certain steps in the game and taste paradise first. But…to take her before she was _legally_ mine felt like a transgression. Wedding first, and once her name was scripted on the license, tearing might ensue in a need to lay claim.

I pushed the costume from her shoulders and guided its descent, never resisting the urge to toy with random loose curls on the way. She was _mine_ to touch as I pleased, and as such, I added a delicate caress to her bare shoulder before I collected the wedding gown. Her back was always to me, and all the better not to live with the bitterness her eyes would have given as I fluffed the gown and opened its center for her to step into.

Tender, always delicate, I dressed my bride for our wedding and did not curse tiny clasps as I hooked them closed this time. I was creating my fantasy; I wanted perfection too much to let impatience and anger interfere.

Once the gown was in place and adorning her like another stage garb, I caught her shoulders between my palms and gently spun her to face me and give the illusion breath and life. Oh, so lovely… She was the portrait of pristine elegance…except for the tears that gleamed in blue eyes and reflected the light. How I detested their glorious shimmer!

"Now I expect a decent façade, my dear," I ordered with a modicum of severity. "There are many facets tonight that could fall either way of the tightrope we tread. It will be up to _you_ if we tumble to our demise or rise to the heavens."

There were questions in the middle of despair, but before she could speak their sounds, I went to her mattress and lifted the lace veil into my trembling hands. Coy and timid with its finite construction, I bought it to my awaiting bride and never hesitated to set it so tenderly atop her curls. I barely touched more than material, only took a graze that one coiled lock granted my knuckle on retreat, and it was such a delicious tickle that I shivered from my crown to my toes.

"Oh, Christine," I sighed before I could think better of it. "Why did you turn my love into a cross to bear? It was supposed to be a gift. I've never given it to anyone; no one could ever be worthy of its extraordinary nuances, but you…you were the exception to every rule. And how was love repaid, but with _betrayal_ as your weapon, driven into my unprotected heart by a merciless hand. _You_ murdered the man who adored you, and if ghosts live and breathe on, they curse your name for your foolish folly. Now you play with the phantom, my naïve child. When you once would have had a worshipper, you now have a monster, and woe to you for your cast fate."

That was all. I was through groveling and whining for love. Such antics had gotten me nothing; it was time to sculpt my own destiny and never accept defeat. I was the god among us after all!

I didn't give Christine time to pose protest and make herself into the victim. I left her standing there, crying in her bridal gown, and locking her in like a prisoner and certainly not the soon-to-be lady of the house, I strode with confidence and stoic grace to my sitting room. Only one more piece to the puzzle, and we'd be able to carry on with the show.

There was one more member to our sordid cast. The gallant Vicomte de Chagny, the epithet of _hero_, or so _he_ liked to think. He wouldn't be far behind our escape, eager to leap in and save the day. _Pathetic_. I was ready to heave him from his steed and expose his puffed-up ego for what it was.

As I waited, I heard signs of life from my bride as she toyed with a locked door handle. _Oh no, Christine, you'll never achieve freedom that way_. She truly should have known my mastery of traps and containment by now. I did not use commonplace locks, easily picked and broken. I used impenetrable variations, ones I'd improvised upon until no one could be their master. One prisoner in entrapment. I had only to wait for…

_Curtain_. The whispers of scuffling motion echoed out from my torture chamber. It was one of _many_ I'd devised for my protection, but this was the avenue of choice tonight. I'd laid out plans to bring my prey straight to its encasement. The Vicomte de Chagny was no more than a mouse trapped in the wall, scratching about for a means of escape but unable to find anything but potential _death_ at my whim.

I stifled a chuckle, deciding that would _indeed_ make me sound mad, and rushed to the control panel hidden behind a picture. One crank, and torture ensued. Such a chamber had many endearing features. I could produce death by drowning, poisonous snakes, fire… So many choices. For now, I settled with extreme heat, a temperature so excessive that his frail mortal body must show its seams and fractures, break apart slow and savory.

Again stopping more laughter, I flipped a switch that turned a portrait over the far wall into a window and showed the agony going on within my torture devise. One would assume I'd have used more mirrors to make windows, but in truth, I hated them and only allowed their presence in Christine's chamber. No other existed in my domain. They showed too much reality.

On the opposite side of my window, the noble Vicomte was already starting to feel the effects of my brand of torture. His flawless, pale skin tinted pink, perspiration lining his brow, and as he fought to breathe the stifling air, he untied his cravat and loosened a stiff collar, gasping against thickness.

A button beside the window gave me the ability to speak unseen to my victim, and with one push, I bid, "My gallant Vicomte, are you enjoying your little sojourn into the tropics?"

"Fiend!" he hissed back, throat parched and ragged, and I finally consented to that acrid chuckle and watched it rattle his gentleman's countenance. Yes, let _him_ think he dealt with a madman! It was an incentive in his case.

"Where is Christine?" he gasped, and I hated her name on his lips.

"Well taken care of, as always. Did you truly think I would ever do her harm? No, all my malice was reserved for _you_, Monsieur. You and your meddlesome methods. Christine was _mine_, but you could not respect our bond. No, you tried to destroy it and uncoil its woven threads. But I am here to say that you _failed_, Monsieur Vicomte. Christine is _mine_ as much as she ever was, and _you_ are a step from death's threshold."

"Disfigured monster!" the Vicomte insulted, and I would have pushed onward, perhaps _killed_ him already if not for the hoarse difficulty in every heaved word. He was _suffering_, and I favored it too much to end it this quickly. "She would _never_ choose you of her own free will, not without manipulation on your part. Ask her where her heart resides, Monsieur. I can swear until my last breath that it lies with me."

His assertion sickened me, and with a growl, I closed our communication and rushed in search of my bride. Yes, it was time. She was mine in every way but legal means; time to bind every road and secure the future _I_ wanted.

As I unlocked her bedroom door, I stepped inside with a modicum of caution. Christine was addled and confused; I did not put it past her in such a state to go to some extreme. Attack me, hurt herself. It was impossible to predict her impetus. I did not expect to find her slouched in defeat before her mirror, her white skirts bunched about her shape as she sat awkwardly perched on the vanity bench. She lifted tear-filled blue eyes to my entrance, but spoke not a word. It stung me to _want_ so much more from this situation and yet be denied.

"Christine," I called with a fraction of gentleness, "will you say what's wrong, _ange_? Has your Erik disappointed you already?"

She trembled but gave no answer in her sorrowful lament, only turned back to her reflection and a disparaging girl in the glass. I was not keen on approaching; that mirror was like a defensive weapon and deadly in its necessary revelations, but I felt I had little choice. I came to stand behind my bride and sought to focus on _her_, not on my own horror. But an image of the complete picture was inevitable.

And what did I see? Like a family portrait frozen in time and captured in a filmed photograph, I saw our wedding…and it was gruesome in its telltale details. A beautiful bride in white with lace veil over her dark, childlike curls, and her groom, a corpse, more skeleton than man with every unnatural flaw on display. I was…ugly. Might as well not sugarcoat it to myself. I was a nightmare brought into existence, and as I regarded reality in a mirror's glaring glass, the Vicomte's words rang in my inner ears. She'd never choose a corpse of her own free will, …not a monster with death on his hands. Something so pure and beautiful couldn't _want_ a hideous beast as her husband.

…Well, free will was overrated. I'd make this choice for her since her perception was askew and _prove_ in the end that monsters loved more vehement and fitful than ordinary men anyway.

"Are you ready, my dear?" I asked, replacing my countenance. She might ponder arrogance within its limits; I called it 'imperative confidence' instead.

She lost a soft gasp as I set my palm upon her shoulder, and holding the glint of tears in the mirror glass, I felt the shudder her rigid posture emitted.

Swallowing back a lash of temper, I stated, cold and sharp, "It's only natural for nerves. Every bride-to-be is anxious for the wedding, but _I_ will be right beside you. You need not fear."

I wanted the role of perfect bride; I sought to mold her every unacceptable emotion to the finest detail into my desire. If she would not play the game, I'd _pretend_ she did. I was determined to savor this night with or without her participation. After all, one only married once.

"Come, my love," I called congenially. "I have…a wedding present of sorts awaiting you."

She was reluctant, but I clasped her shoulders and guided her to her feet as a sob echoed the walls. No, no… I'd make that a cry of elation instead.

I brought her to the window into a den of torture, and the instant blue eyes spotted her waning Vicomte, she broke free of my hold and rushed forward with a cry.

"Raoul!"

I caught her fiercely before she ever set palms to the glass. "Now, now, I can't have you hurting yourself, Christine. That plaited window picks up enough heat to grant a burn. I couldn't forgive myself if _you_ were hurt in your hasty excursions."

She averted her terror to me and suddenly gripped my jacket in her desperate fists. "Let him go! I beg of you!"

It was the most emotion she'd given me all evening even if the wrong one. "Well, of course not! He is the bane of our existence, and we need him out of our way to truly start our life together."

I encircled each of her dainty wrists with my long fingers. Earlier, my grip had been fierce enough to damage; now I was delicate. And why? That girl in the previous scene was the harlot who'd betrayed me, and this was my adored bride. I could not bring myself to consider such brutality.

"Christine," I teased my lips with her name. "Surely you realize that while he lives, we will never be free. He must be banished from this world if only to make it obvious how worthless his existence is. Oh, don't cry tears for _him_, silly child! Once he's gone, you'll understand how toxic his so-called affections have been. They've poisoned you against me!"

"_Please_." Her blue eyes were wide and wild, laden in her apparent desperation, and the nearest to lucid and convicted that she'd been all night, she suddenly presented me with an unexpected offer. "You want me to play a part, to _be_ your bride, willing and seamless in execution? Let Raoul go, and that is what I shall give you in return. I will marry you of my own free choice, and I will be the wife you want. Erik, …please don't kill him in my name."

I was stunned to silence for a long breath. In truth, I had never considered such a trade-off, but…it was almost pleasant in the presentation. Christine as my _willing_ bride and wife, not a tremulous victim of coercion and force. She'd be _mine_, and no argument needed to be posed against it.

"Erik," she continued when I still denied speech, "_please_. You're hurting him! Make this stop, and I will be yours."

Hmm… Not entirely _willing_, I supposed. More like the selfless martyr sacrificing herself to the pyre and damnation with a noble soul. But…perhaps I could use this as a starting point, a platform up to something better. Let her bless the Vicomte with her saving grace. She would not leave with him or spite me… Yes, this was an idea with merit after all.

"Erik!"

"All right," I finally conceded, and yet did not favor the glances she kept casting at darling Raoul. Her heart was too plain on her pretty face. "I accept your proposal, but…well, it is only fitting for a deal to be solidified in its seal. I do not ask for more than what a _wife_ would give." I justified before I presented the point, futilely so when she truly had no choice left. "A kiss, Christine. Make your proposition valid with a kiss, and then we will sign a legal and binding marriage license. I want it blatant upfront what terms exist to preserve your boy's life, for in truth, I'd rather see him _dead_. A viable and committed marriage: vow yourself to me with a kiss."

It was something I'd always wanted and always been denied. A kiss was a symbol of love and acceptance, of being an integral and entitled member of the human race. As the proverbial outcast, I never anticipated knowing a kiss from anyone. Once when no more than a child, I'd asked my mother for that simple pleasure only to be rejected and humiliated for daring. Now to request it of Christine, I hid a qualified terror of her refusal and open disgust.

But she granted a glance to her oblivious Vicomte, sweltering away in the chamber, approaching death's door, and resolve seemed to overtake trepidation. She kept fists within my jacket and fixed her gaze on my corpse's face, steady and surprisingly calm.

One deep breath, and her lips were upon mine. The pressure was tentative and soft, uncertain, but no more so than I. Of that first kiss, that was the only detail I recalled because I was such a victim of shock that it froze all other senses and their corresponding emotions. A kiss… I was learning what a kiss was; I was _being_ kissed and transforming with it into a man who possessed the chance to be ordinary for once in a tedious life. Ordinary had always been an aspiration beyond my capabilities, but with Christine's gentle kiss searing my misshapen mouth, it suddenly felt attainable.

The intoxication was brief and fleeting. She pulled away before I ever found sense enough to respond, but my skin tingled all over as though I were suddenly _alive_. She had bequeathed herself to my care by _kissing_ the most horrid part of me. I felt humbled to bear witness to her sudden bravery. And it was more intimate and familiar than anything because my face was my degradation; a kiss to its misshapen lips was the equivalent of a kiss to an internal organ, lips touching something so private and personal that no one else was meant to know it. In my mind, she _claimed_ it at that moment and branded in her mark.

As blue eyes fixed to my agape expression, I wanted to relish the moment, to live it with her, but she reminded reality in one sentence, "Now let Raoul go."

I didn't protest. No, she was _mine_, and it didn't matter, so I strode to the wall panel and smacked buttons that ended the sauna inside before I freed my prey. He was too weak to stand upright, and with an annoyed huff when all I could ponder was my marriage ceremony, I entered the chamber and lifted the Vicomte by his shirtfront, dragging him into the sanctity of _our_ house.

Tossing him to the carpet, I looked to my bride and found her anxiety always upon me. She seemed as if she would approach the Vicomte, hands half-outstretched, but quickly thinking better of it, she remained in her spot and feigned a braver composure than I knew she had.

So I took over the role of host and greeted our 'guest'. "Welcome, Monsieur Vicomte. As you can see, this meets every requirement for the definition of a home. No damp coldness, no spider webs in the corners, no decrepit state. It is up to par with what the title calls to mind, and you can find no folly or dub it a dungeon. …All right, perhaps the torture chamber is a bit much, but only ignorant _fools_ dare venture inside. _Christine_ will be safe and taken care of in our chosen residency all her days."

But my rival's attention was not on my snide remarks; he was too busy contemplating my bride with an expression of pure horror. "Christine, no…"

"No?" I answered for her. "But it's already _done_, Monsieur, in all but the fine details. We've made a vow and sealed it with a kiss. And as for legal commitments," as I spoke, I went to the hearth and snatched a parchment from a trinket box. "A marriage license, permanent and enduring, and you, Monsieur Vicomte, are fortunate enough to be our witness."

I didn't care about the Vicomte's reaction, more horror to be sure; I focused on Christine and watched her character crumble with the news as I brought the parchment to the coffee table and laid it out for all to see.

"Come, my love," I called as if unshaken, "sign your name and make it official."

"Christine!" The Vicomte attempted to rise, but his previous stint of torture left him unable to achieve but a step before tumbling beneath uncooperative legs. With an aggravated moan, he had only words as weapons. "Don't do this! Don't give into this bastard for me! I am not worth signing your life away to a madman!"

"No," I agreed, "_you_ are not, and Christine knows it. She chose this path _willingly_. Isn't that right, Christine?"

Her vow made it so, and I knew she would not argue with the Vicomte's existence hanging in the balance. She remained pensive but stoic as she softly bid, "He's right, Raoul. I chose willingly. …I'm sorry."

"No! Christine!"

But she was en route to the parchment, and meeting my gaze only once with a hint of contempt, she lifted the quill and signed. I could not help but smile; it was almost my happy ending. I signed immediately after her, loving the vision of our penmanship side by side, scribing our names together eternally. Neither God nor man could destroy our union now.

I would have asked for another kiss, a proper start to our marriage, but I loathed the idea of hosting such an intimacy with an audience who was sure to show only revulsion. It would have seemed an act of possession to his regard, and kisses should _never_ be trivialized.

"Well, my _wife_," I thrilled with the word, "if you will await me, I will return our guest to his world. I shan't be long."

She didn't reply, but I saw the glint of tears before she turned for one more look at her childhood sweetheart. No more of this nonsense! I did not hesitate to heave the Vicomte up in his weakened state and hoist him toward the foyer. One precaution, I locked the door behind us. No chances should ever be taken with happy endings.

"Locking her in her cage, you monster?" the Vicomte rasped out.

"Locking would-be heroes and villains _out_," I corrected. "And let it stand to reason that if you value your life, you won't ever return this way, Monsieur. I am only a man of mercy _once_ when death is so much more convenient."

He would have argued, would have fought, sought to dispatch me before I could claim my rights as husband, so I used one of my tricks: a potent toxin that when breathed into the lungs caused a comatose state. He was unconscious in one breath, and despite my meager frame, I hauled his body through the catacombs. It wasn't difficult if I kept my goal and awaiting wife in my mind. I was too eager to get back.

I deposited the Vicomte backstage in the abandoned opera house and checked all the entranceways before I returned. I had to be sure no one would bypass my security again. …Especially not tonight.

As I stalked the familiar path below, I felt the anticipation wind within me and become a tight knot of excitement. The intimate relationship of a man and a woman was as foreign to me as a kiss. I knew mechanics and that was all, but when adding in the fervent pulls of my own yearning, I could already tell acting on these desires would alter my existence forever.

From the instant I'd seen Christine, they'd spiraled beyond control. How amazing to _want_ so deeply and _ache_ so much! It was more than her pretty face and desirous body. I'd known arousal before; it was biology, a part of development. With Christine, it felt imperative to quench this fire in her arms. Maybe it was her angel's voice, the point I'd first fallen in love with, or maybe it was her innocence and naïve heart, details I longed to preserve from a world of sin and vice. But it had always felt like she was meant for _me_.

The consideration that I'd made the prophecy come true and Christine was my _wife_ made my body tighten and throb as I rushed with hasty steps. Oh Lord! Such a powerful need! It clawed at my core in unbearable currents. And to know tonight I would find satisfaction with her almost sent me over the edge. Desire's madness was welcomed if pleasure was its peak.

When I finally entered the house, my gut feeling tried to poison me and insist this night had all been a dream and I was still alone. But…I peeked into the sitting room, and my bride was cast in whites and silks, the epitome of a virginal goddess. She'd removed her veil, and it rested in a heap on the carpet as her fingertips idly tugged at her sleeve's lace trim. There was a moment where I was allowed to simply _stare_ before she sensed my presence and flipped about with a gasp.

"Such serious thoughts," I accused and never drew focus to the telling hoarseness of my voice. "But all matters are settled now. There is no place for gloominess here."

"You didn't…" She paused and swallowed before trying again. "You didn't hurt the Vicomte, did you?"

"Don't bring his name into our home again," I commanded in spite of an internal voice that begged me to be gentle with her. Gentle with the wife who pined for another man… "But if it eases your conscience, no, I did not hurt the Vicomte, as per our promised arrangement. So you see, your sacrifice was not in vain."

How quickly all anticipated musings on intimate pleasures evaporated to animosity! It hurt me to ponder that my wife wished for another man to take her to his bed, to vow forever with her, to love and adore her, and even though it was no surprise now that we'd hit our epilogue, it felt out of place and an abomination.

"Languish over his loss as you will," I bid, "but that is _your_ sin to bear judgment for. I want none of it known within these walls. You are _my_ wife, not the Vicomte's. I will not tolerate his continued interference. _You_ made a choice; now abide by its facets."

"Yes, Erik," she replied with a rush of red to her cheeks. Was it shame to be reproached by her husband? Shame that her inner turmoil was commonly known? …Shame for the choice she'd made? Too late for reprieves, and I was through exercising any form of patience tonight.

Extending my hand for hers, I watched her fright-filled gaze meet mine and knew I showed only primal hungers in return. Let it push fear onward. She was aware what marriage meant, wasn't she? She was not allowed to deny me.

Her fingers shook in midair before they set in mine, each slender joint timid and carved in her apprehension, and I did nothing to calm her. As far as I was concerned, it was time to grow up. I was done honing roles of father figure and guardian for the girl I both loved and desired. She needed to understand that.

With her hand secure in mine, I drew her toward her bedroom in my crypt-like home. That was necessity. My own variation was prohibited to her entry. And why? Because corpses slept in coffins, and I had followed suit. If Christine knew such a detail, she would see another point to call this a horror story and her new husband only a demonic monster. She wouldn't have understood that a coffin was a form of masochism and self-punishment. Coffins were firm and decidedly morbid. Sleeping in one's confines _made me_ the corpse I'd been dubbed without hope of salvation. …So tonight I would _feel_ in her bed and remember I was still alive.

When I released her shaking hand, we stood as we had earlier, and I had a line of clasps awaiting my attention. With delicate care, I brushed her curls aside, guiding them to bunch over one shoulder as their silkiness tickled my fingertips. So soft, so sweet in their innocent doll-like coils. I could hardly believe they were now officially _mine_. Every bit of the girl trembling before me was branded in my crest by God and government, and I would not be deterred from full possession.

Unhooking the path down her spine, I parted white material and imagined I was stripping her purity with the gown's shield. What need did she still have for it if we were now bound together? Now let her be as tarnished inside as I myself was and name us two parts of the same whole.

The gown tumbled to the floor, and she shivered and shook as I moved onto the lacings of her corset. They were not knotted or pinched too tight, not when this evening had begun with an opera production, so thankfully, it was without much effort that I unraveled their casing and tossed the cursed object aside. More white to join pooled material, more white remaining to conceal the rest of her form. I was impatient to rid her of every layer and study her naked body. When my every fantasy had been concocted with no valid knowledge as a basis, this would be _real_ and _warm_, soft to the touch… I trembled with the mere ideas spinning through my head as I stepped about to face her and noted how tight her arms were woven about her chemise as if she refused to ever let it go.

Tears might have been a reality if she weren't so wide-eyed and afraid. Now she only stared in nervous shock and remained rigid and frozen on her feet. I let her keep scrap bits of modesty long enough to remove my waistcoat and unbutton my shirt cuffs and collar, watching her in lustful admiration as I worked. The terrified fly caught in the spider's spun web… It was an applicable analogy even if I did not favor it. I wanted a passionate, equally lustful wife, but…perhaps once shocks wore off. We had forever to evolve after all.

"You are my wife," I stated as if needing to hear the assertion in the air. "You will not deny me, will you?"

She slowly shook her head, but her eyes lowered to the floor, more shame mixed with timidity and fear. It was powerful enough to make me waver and fidget with the buttons of my shirt. Oh God… This was my fantasy, my dreams, and it was _mine _to take. Why did I suffer such guilt? It attacked in brutal undulations, but despite its bitter aftertaste, I forced control and made my desire all that existed and mattered now. This was ridiculous! As if she wielded masochism _purposely_ to make me hesitate! I wasn't about to lose my earned rights when she had also been the one to crush and bruise my heart at every turn of events.

My hands halted their tremors, assured in their task as they reached for the rest of her undergarments. I stripped her as calculated and yet curious as she'd stripped me of my mask, and I watched the eruption of pinks along her skin like a raging wildfire. Every pale speck was enflamed in its glow; at first, it was the draw of my full attention simply because of its vibrant hue and contrast to her usually white complexion. But then I let my eyes wander and swallowed hard against the driving ache in my being to observe the bare form of my coveted Christine for the first time.

She was more than beautiful. I'm sure every man in love thinks his dearest one is the most exquisite creation of God's hands, and perhaps I was equally oblivious, in such a mindset that I was distracted and awed by a female body, but as I studied and mesmerized myself on every glorious feature, I was doubtless Christine was some sort of goddess brought to life. …An angel of the Lord perchance. She was just so flawless, so perfectly designed: every detail from the pink rosebud tips of her full breasts to the slender curves of her every limb and muscle. Her dark curls dangled about her smooth shoulders, a curtain to more indiscriminant inches of flesh, and though my fingers shook again, I lifted them to brush the cascade back and reveal the gentle line of her collarbone and column of her throat. She shivered, though I'd yet to touch skin and still would not raise blue eyes from the carpet.

_My wife_…and was she humiliated only to bare her body, or was it because she bared her body for a monster's lustful taking? I was already aware that my face disgusted her no matter any pretense she put on. Perhaps she'd imagined the perfect Vicomte would be the one to bear witness to her nudity and take her virginity. The thought enraged me for obvious reasons and made me desperate to rattle the idea from her head. Let her be sure _who_ was claiming her. Tonight she slept with the devil.

Without peremptory warning, I reached out and cupped the weight of one breast in my hand, and I felt her jump with a start, her heartbeat echoing in its franticness. My hands were cold, always cold and clammy, fingers long and boney like the skeleton I'd been compared to; against her warm, soft flesh, I was the eternal contrast. She would never mistake my touch for another's, never be allowed the escape of mental fantasies when in my bed. I was pleased because it meant she was in this moment with me.

"Does my touch repulse you?" I softly asked as I caught her nipple between my fingers and pinched.

She lost a gasp, and although I longed for it to be a response of wanting, her cringe told the truth. Evidently, disgust ran deeper than I'd thought. But like the dutiful pupil she'd once been, she replied in a broken voice, "You are my husband, …and I will give you what you want."

It was enough to smooth the sharp edges of my disappointment for now, and I matched my pose with her other breast, touching, learning, burning from the inside out. I knew I could not endure much more. Too long had been spent denying these urges. I'd pent them up behind a brick wall that was now tumbling down, and the intensity had me clutching the reins of control as they slid free of my grasp. I had to have her…_now_.

With an abruptness that made her gasp, I swept her bare body into my arms and carried her to the bed, laying her upon the mattress. I was already addicted to her inherent heat and almost did not put her down when holding her warmed a path into my blood and made me so close to alive. Perhaps if I wasn't so achingly hard and throbbing, I would have been content with embraces, but as it was, I shuddered at the foot of the mattress and rapidly discarded my clothing as her wide, terror-filled eyes stared, transfixed.

I knew I was nothing when compared to the broad build of the Vicomte; I _was_ the skeleton corpse, thin and deceptively frail, skin pulled taut and thin over bone, white as death. I was hideous; I'd never given her illusions I was anything else, not since she'd learned I was no angel. But as I disrobed I was certain she saw more proofs of a monster and never considered I was equally a man. Even the extent of my erection did not lessen the horror of my gaunt and skeletal framework, it seemed. She was so focused on my torso that she had yet to acknowledge anything beyond exposed rib-bones and the nearly translucent flesh atop their cage.

"Disappointed in your choice for husband?" I couldn't help but taunt when showing my true hurt was unthinkable. "Perhaps you had not realized you were death's bride. Now there's no sugarcoating the truths in frilly fancies. We are bared to each other, and you have beauty to offer while I've none to return. But the dies are cast and this body, though a travesty of construction is _yours_."

A gift she obviously saw as a curse, and though she shrank back against the mattress, I allowed her no room for escape as I fitted my body over hers and seared myself willingly with the heat of her skin as my poker. Oh, so delicious and soft, so _warm_. I was a creature of cold catacombs, of crypts with their ghastly nuances and macabre horrors, but for the first time, I was _more_ than that, the nearest to ordinary that I'd ever been. And though she was petrified beneath me, it was almost a dream as I roughly parted her clenched thighs and opened her for my intrusion.

I couldn't have held back if I wanted to. I was too overdone, and as she stared at my exposed face with terrified tremors, I thrust deep into her, tearing through her virginity as her scream rang in my ears. I wanted to care, to comfort her and show tenderness, but…I was a man who'd never been desire's victim, and to have her beneath me and surrounding my hardness, so snug and tight as if she were made solely to fit me, I could only reason the need for _more_.

I moved, sharp and abrupt, and though she sobbed and buried her tears in her pressing palms, she did nothing but permit. No struggle, no begging to stop. Stop…? How could I possibly? I ached for release, and pushing her softness firm into the mattress with my unyielding boney build, I thrust deeper, harder, and though her body seemed reluctant at first, it had no choice but to concede and surrender its defenses. I left no other option.

She would not lower her hands and look at me, and I hated her for it. Catching her wrists fierce enough to make her shudder, I pried her grip free and fixed my fiery glare on the rivulets of tears along her porcelain features.

"You are _mine_," I reminded harshly and kept her wrists pinned in the tousled mass of her curls as I plunged rough and let passion consume me. This was the moment I _chose_ madness. Insanity with fulfillment but inches from my fingertips, and I did not regret a single motion as I rode her toward my peak, an incomprehensible cry fleeing my misshapen lips that drowned out her quiet sobs. Harder, and she shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut.

"No! Open your eyes!" I commanded in a growl and stared in blue depths as ecstasy struck and swelled. It was so powerful that it quaked my entire body and thudded through my pores. Oh, to finally know satisfaction!

But bliss was short-lived and brief in its sweet flavor. As I sought to catch my breaths and find their pattern, I heard the softest whimpers…like the brutalized cry of a wounded child. _Christine_…

Guilt rapidly surged and overpowered, and with a soft exhalation of a heavy breath, I lifted myself from her small body and watched her limbs immediately jerk close, hugging tight and protective as her virginal blood shrieked in vivid reds. I'd done this to her, and even if it had been my _right_, the victory felt empty when she didn't share it. No… She wept into her palms and rubbed her cheek into her pillow, the broken girl assaulted by a monster. She was mine, my wife, our marriage valid and consummated, …and I felt more alone than ever.

Yanking on my clothing with violently trembling hands, I gazed at the half-concealed features of her pale body and condemned myself for taking such beauty for granted. I was selfish; I had the proof in damning reds along her perfect thighs. But…it was _my_ _right_. I argued it back and forth within my head with the echoes of her muffled sobs in my ears. I was a husband; I had violated my wife in my hunger; what was I now but the same monster as ever in her eyes?

I left her alone that night, creeping silently from her room and yet locking the door behind myself. The turned click was deafening when my footsteps held stealth, but I couldn't leave opportunities for her to hurt herself in a need to be free of her horror. No…I needed more chances.

As I loomed near my hearth and suffered a mixture of regret for my actions and longing to do them again, I pondered the reality that I was never so sane in my entire life as that night with the theft of Christine's virginity on my conscience. I lucidly knew what I'd done and was doubtless madness was not in my future. I _cared_ too much for its escape.


	2. Chapter 2

I didn't sleep that night, but sometime near dawn, I dared to approach my bride's chamber. No sounds emerged, and hopeful, I unlocked the door and peeked inside. It was almost a relief to find her asleep burrowed in her covers. For all the traumas she'd endured at my hands, if she could find peace enough to sleep, it was a minor blessing.

I did not subject myself to pathetic ogling, nor did I make an attempt to curl upon the mattress with her even if that was all I wanted. I restricted desire in a tight knot and departed the house, leaving her bedroom unlocked. The house would seem a prison still, but…maybe she'd consider it a meager consolation.

Masked and cloaked, their dark phantom again, I wandered Paris' streets with no real target in mind. My only certainty was that I could not stay in that house any longer with guilt like a heavy blanket choking off my air supply. I needed to breathe; I needed to think.

I suddenly wished I were insane so much that it felt like it would happen and strike me down any second. If I were, I could _take_ and not bear repercussions. I'd have an _excuse_ for my behavior and would pin anything I did not favor on madness. But no. Instead, I _loved_, and that made me not crazy, only pitiable. I loved a girl who couldn't love me back. Was the deficiency that made such a tragedy in _me_ or in _her_? Which one of us was to blame for feelings that were misaligned and had never connected unless lies were between us to cushion the blow? It didn't seem fair.

I yearned to be a husband, but I had a wife who didn't favor her title, and as I stalked Paris' alleyways and shadows, I had no purposeful direction for how to mend things between us. I fumbled with idea after idea and could only assert one point: I _loved _and _desired_ my wife the way any good and ordinary husband should. If she couldn't feel such things back, it was _her_ fault and failure. My only shortcoming was a sin-laden soul, but it did _nothing_ to change what I felt for her and such emotions were _beautiful_ under the umbrella of marriage even if the heart that felt them had an ugly shell.

The longer I walked and contemplated, the more I came to realize that I had done _nothing _wrong. I had taken my _wife_ to our marriage bed. Perhaps I had been a bit selfish in the act, but desire was an intoxication I had yet to conquer and place within my control. She couldn't truly chastise me for wanting her and expecting her to fulfill her marriage vow, could she? She had no right! She'd posed this plan and claimed she'd be the willing bride if I spared her precious Vicomte. Damn her for making me feel guilty!

The sun was on its way to setting before I escaped its dimming rays for the catacombs again. Each footfall brought me closerto home and built desire one platform to the next. Returning home to my wife, and now with guilt assuaged and dubbed unnecessary, I _ached_ again, even more than I had the previous night on this same trek. Now I'd had a taste, and it was in my blood. My body tingled through every inch of skin to _feel her_, to bury myself deep in her core and experience that perfect, tight fit that made us one. She could never understand how much I'd been moved by such an act, as if I'd found my necessary safe haven and the protected, sacred spot I'd been denied all my life. There was lust, but there was also peace and pleasure, every emotion I'd ever yearned for, all thriving in her embrace. I had to have her again…

With the dull thud of passion's pulsation in my ears, I unlocked the door to the house, eager for the first glimpse of her. One look would make it all boil over; I anticipated it, peeking into the sitting room and finding her little shape curled on my couch, wide eyes settling on me with an apprehension she never sought to hide.

Impatience was one of my vices, and with the throbbing hardness of my body encouraging it on, I did not bother to find words. I simply extended a hand as I had the previous night and knew my ravenous eyes told what I wanted.

I noted the catch of her breath as her attention shifted from my hand to my masked face and back again, and with the slow shake of her head, she softly whispered, "I don't want to…"

She trailed off as if she could not find a suitable word for an act I perceived only in terms of ecstasy, and I felt my temper flare to life as I considered the ache I suffered and _should not have to_ suffer anymore.

"Are you…denying me?" I demanded with a sharpness I could not soften. "Your _husband_?"

Tears rimmed her frantic blue eyes, and I saw the shivers racking her body. The thought of sharing my bed was _traumatic_ for her; I felt sickened with the realization.

"I…I can't do that again," she murmured, breathless and stifling a sob. "Please understand-"

"Understand? _You_ vowed to be my wife. _Willingly_, you said, Christine, and now you wish me to give up the privileges of being a husband because you don't want a monster in your bed? _You_ wed the monster, my dear! I thought reality was clear and evident when you signed the license."

She flinched and wrapped trembling arms about her torso, shrinking deep into the cushions as she gazed at me with beseeching eyes and begged, "Erik, please… Please don't make me do…_that_ again. You…hurt me." Her tears were blinding in their accusations, glinting like dagger blades in the fire glow. "I…I'll kiss you," she offered as if compensation for the things she refused. "As many kisses as you'd like, just…please let that be enough."

Guilt… It returned so brutal that it knocked the breath from my lungs, and in the midst of my anguish, I spat a vicious growl that made her jolt and threw myself into my chair, fixing my glowering gaze on the fire flames of the hearth. I could not reason looking at _her_ any longer when desire was so telltale; it was suddenly a degradation. My wife begged me not to touch her, not to undress her and feel bare skin surround me. My wife didn't want me, and wanting her then was humiliating me.

I heard the rustle of skirts and knew she'd arisen from her seat on the couch, but I did not know if she intended to flee my presence, …not until she approached and sank to her knees at my feet. I still would not look at her, but she set her cheek to my knee and I felt the wetness of tears saturate material and dampen my flesh beneath.

"I'm sorry, Erik," she whimpered between the gasps of her weeping. "I'm sorry… I know I'm not a good wife… I'm sorry…"

This was a child, crying her discontentment, and I could not keep the ache of tenderness from my heart with recollections of our first encounters. I'd pretended to be an angel to soothe such soul-consuming agony and make her whole again. Now I fixed my gaze on her and saw the same little girl, frightened by the world, and I hated being the reason behind it.

Using the gentle tones I'd once granted as her angel, I bid, "It's all right, _petite_. Don't cry, sweet _ange_."

My fingers shook, but I un-fisted them from my armrest and brought them to her, noting that she stiffened but did not pull away as I found her smooth brow and stroked a gentle caress. Good God, I was so delicate with her! Why then did she still doubt my intentions? Even when I played angel, she saw the body of a man and worried I'd take more without permission. How could I possibly? I _loved her_ too much.

Tender and careful, I guided my fingers along her hairline, back and forth, soothing as I saw tears reach an ending point and begin to dry on her cheeks. As I gazed at blue eyes that remained with mine, I _wanted _her; I couldn't help it. I wanted, but I would not take. …And it wasn't fair.

I could draw only one viable conclusion in all of this: I'd obviously done something wrong. She'd made it clear that I'd hurt her, and it had to be my fault. My inexperience had a downfall after all, it seemed.

As an outsider looking in, I'd seen lust in its most primal stages. In Persia when I'd been a member of the shah's most elite court, I'd watched women from his harem flaunt themselves about, half a seduction even in public. Those women had seemed to feel desire right back. Sensual, passionate, unafraid. They craved a man in their beds, craved and hungered as I did for Christine. There seemed no logical reason why Christine should never know the same hungers. They couldn't be restricted for men. Couldn't I teach her to feel them for me?

I didn't know enough on the subject, but I was suddenly determined to learn and not allow this to be a closed door forever. I would make love _correctly_ next time, and if I could get her to feel _anything_ like I did, perhaps I'd find the passionate soul beneath the layers of her innocence, the soul I knew must mirror mine.

I kept my fingers gentle as I brushed the lingering traces of tears from her cheeks, and gazing at her beautiful face in adoration, I promised, "We will not do anything you do not want tonight. I must also learn to be a good husband, and that means making you happy with me, Christine. I vow to do my best and not to hurt you again."

I chose my words meticulously. I never vowed not to _desire_ her again or _make love_ to her again; if I spoke such oaths, I knew they'd be lies.

She took it as all she longed for, and with the tinge of a relived smile, she surprised me. Like a little girl, she rose and climbed onto my lap. It was entirely innocent, but I could not keep my body from reacting to her nearness and her scent. I was so aroused that it was a struggle to keep from merely indulging myself. No…no, I'd vowed not to.

Her expression was scripted in her gratitude and relief the instant before she set her cheek to my heartbeat and cuddled against me. I was astounded that these intimacies did not frighten her as well, but…considering we were both clothed and everything else was only last night's nightmare, perhaps this seemed harmless in comparison. An angel could hold her like this, and she could pretend he was not also an aching man. She could imagine that she did not feel the hardness of my manhood flush to her soft curves, make it nonexistent if it altered the illusion. This was safe, and I realized at that moment that this could be our marriage down to the last detail. In unthreatening perimeters, there could be chances to recapture the affection she had had for an angel, to earn _love_…but love without passion's breath. Love in the purest, most sacred sense, not the sort of fire and flame, heart-rendering suffocation I yearned to know. The girl on my lap was still so much a child, and I wanted the woman she had yet to become. This sort of adoration and worship would never be enough; it was a sore disappointment.

Gazing down at dark curls, I captured a coil between my fingertips and let it tickle my skin, desperate to deter a mind that fantasized such sensation dragged all over my body.

"Christine," I crooned in my angel tone, "I will not ask more of you tonight, but…you offered a kiss. Perhaps it was stated as a flippant distraction, but…will you be kind enough to indulge the proposition? …Or do I ask too much?"

I brought my hand from soft curls to my cold mask and tentatively lifted it away. At such close proximity, there was no softening the harsh edges of distortion as her timid gaze rose and met my ugliness. She frowned ever so slightly, and yet it seemed she tried to hide it, to make herself appear unaffected when I knew better. A skeleton's face leered, and this was her husband by choice. I could imagine she regretted signing her youth and life away to the depths of her being, but she did not speak of that. No, she fastened her eyes to mine and leaned close to brush my misshapen mouth with her perfect lips.

It was delicate, but before she could end and pull away, I kissed her back this time. I made pressure with pursed lips and imitated her motion, gentle, loving, never anything that would shatter her. I held to my new adamancy to rebuild the sculpture of angel first and then…maybe there would be more.

She was surprised by my initiative. I felt her start, but unless she leapt off my lap and showed her true disgust, she could not break the contact. I grasped the opportunity with both hands and deepened the kiss in a way I'd only ever imagined. Fitting my misshapen distortions to her flawlessness, I made the kiss mean something. I moved my mouth and brought her with me, coaxing her to follow my lead, and even if in truth, I did not know what I was doing, she obeyed and acquiesced. It _felt _right.

Gentle contact had the same effect over me as fierce possession when Christine was the impetus, and desperate not to break my promise and _take_ again, I dug my fingernails into the armrests of my chair and let lips be the only means to touch. I knew my body gave me away, throbbing in erratic pulsation against her, but though she stiffened, she did not fight for freedom. She relaxed into my kiss and shyly rested her palms atop my tensed arms. It wasn't an embrace, but I loved it more because it was freely given.

Perverse urges twisted my stomach to taste her. I reined them in, but gave one miniscule surrender, parting her lips with my tongue and stealing a hint of her flavor. It made me shudder the length of my spine in its deliciousness.

I was the one to draw back when I knew I could endure no more and keep control. As I pulled away, hazy blue eyes fixed on my face, and I saw…_surprise_ and the tinge of a shy blush before she ducked her head and set it to my chest again. Perhaps she'd forgotten who or _what_ she'd been kissing. I wasn't sure if I should take that as optimism or insult.

Neither of us spoke as minutes lengthened their seconds, but I timidly stroked her hair again, always half-afraid a moment would come when she'd recoil. But no… She allowed my caress, and gradually, I felt her drift off to sleep.

This was bliss I had no words for, and I was suddenly grateful I had not pushed more upon her and lost this blessing. I was already addicted to her natural warmth, and with her curled so sweetly upon my lap, she was a source of internal solace and comfort, her heat radiating over my body and making me sigh my delight. Oh, to hold her and feel her heartbeat against mine, her every deep and undisturbed breath, to know she trusted me to lay so vulnerable in my arms… Perhaps it was part manipulation: pacify me with innocent tokens and preserve her body from my touch. Was she truly that conniving? I didn't want to think so.

But still a thought kept reappearing. If dearest Raoul were her husband in my stead, would she deny him of his husbandly rights? Was her refusal inspired by innocence or by me? I tried to shut out my mind's torment and remind myself that _I_ was the one holding her, her husband by law, but I wanted her so much that it was difficult to focus beyond desire's obsession. She didn't desire me; did she desire the Vicomte? If I learned to please her, could desire be my reality instead?

Over and over, the questions tortured and gave no answer save one. I would regain her trust and affection and find the knowledge I lacked and then…maybe there was still hope.

* * *

The days to come were pleasant in a sugarcoated, maudlin sort of way. I played a role little different than angel and kept the walls down between us, and I watched her grow to relax in my presence, to smile, even to laugh. Without the pressure of intimacy hovering, she was able to dwell in her innocence, to _be_ a child still and avoid the transition I needed her to make. For now, I accepted it because it meant I could hold her hand.

One would call me juvenile to savor such a mundane touch when I'd already once had her bared beneath me in my bed, but the world took the contact of hand to hand for granted, always pushing for more and never relishing how truly divine it was. Hand in hand, palm to palm, fingers intertwined. We would sit together on the couch as I read to her, and I'd reach out, and she never hesitated to permit me. Never a flinch, never tensed joints. She would set her fingers between mine and curve the tips against my knuckles and make me feel _strong_. It grew to be that _she_ initiated the contact when I would hesitate to act. _She_ would slide her fingers along my palm, looking for their prescribed grooves between mine and fit us together to make one perfect shape.

So I settled for hands and smiles and the sweet affection I often found in her eyes when they'd meet mine with or without the mask. That manmade article was still a part of our life. I was too accustomed to wearing it and couldn't discard it entirely yet, especially when on the occasion that I did remove it, Christine would still frown in that telltale way before she put up her façade. It was lessening in its fabrication, and I was adamant that until the day came that I took off the mask to no reaction whatsoever, I would still use its shield and give myself something to hide behind when I felt too vulnerable.

Because my little wife was my entire world, I hadn't found time to wander into the city and seek information on garnering a woman's desires. It was intelligent on my part to remain in her line of sight and presence as much as I could until she was adjusted, but as I saw her begin to accept the scope of our home and life, I knew I had to seek what I needed and find the real love story I yearned for.

I was drawing on a thick cloak with a concealing hood for my venture when Christine entered the sitting room and regarded my Opera Ghost persona with a furrowed brow.

"Where are you going?"

I pondered the easiest explanation and concluded, "We need provisions, and a trip above is called for. I won't be gone long."

"Above…" Her blue eyes sparkled as if life were renewed. "May I come with you? Oh, Erik, please. I would give anything to see the sun."

Her 'anything' and mine were two different things, but I shook my head and decided, "I will be busy and preoccupied. This is not the place for your company. You must realize that I move about the world in shadows. I cannot idly stroll the street like any ordinary man." It was half a retort, but I considered her ignorant to have never considered such valid points.

Apprehension appeared with my tone, but though she stuttered her reply, she did not waver as expected. "Then allow me to walk on my own, and I will be no bother to you. Just a trek about the block, and I will meet you back at the opera."

Such a suggestion! Of course I was suspicious. It was rather convenient, and I was surprised she proposed it so straightforward. Present her sin to the devil himself? If it wasn't so foolish, I might consider it genius. Hide sin by giving is details away… Maybe I should try that next time.

"And what would you do alone in the city?" I inquired as if I granted valid mediation to her plight.

"Just a stroll in the sunlight," she immediately answered, and gullible child as she was, she believed my guise and thought she had a chance for the reply she wanted. "I wouldn't be long or walk far. It would be so refreshing to feel the sun glow upon my face…" The ambition was real, but it was the destination I was skeptical over. It would be so easy for her to run and never return.

"All right, I suppose," I replied and shrugged with idle thought. "I often forget how accustomed to the world you are. Surely my home seems a tomb when the sun is beyond your reach. A quick walk, and then you must meet me back at the entrance to the catacombs."

Her smile was exuberant and brighter than that sunlight she so craved, and with an excited laugh, she gushed, "Oh, thank you, Erik! Let me just get a cloak!"

Did she really believe I would be in accord so readily and let her beyond my sight in the free world? Marriage or not, I had no guarantee she would honor her vow. She could have made me promises, and I'd still doubt. I felt I had just cause.

But I took her with me on a journey into the populated city, exiting the damp catacomb air and finding the breeze much warmer and the sun glinting in its vibrancy.

Stoic and playing the part my costume dictated, I commanded, "You will meet me back here in an hour, no more."

"Yes, Erik," she agreed with a grin before abandoning me for the busy walkways just past our shadows.

Of course I followed her. I could not reason taking the chance of losing my bride. Even if her intention truly was genuine, I did not know that. I sought deception and an excuse to lock her in forever. One misstep on her part, and I wouldn't know guilt. I would be validated and pardoned for drastic measures because _she_ would be the sinner and deceiver between us this time. I _wanted_ that reason almost as much as I didn't. If it came, it would mean every second of our past days together enjoying each other's company was a lie…and that she was not the innocent child I perceived her to be. Perhaps she was as much a mastermind as the Opera Ghost.

I felt my fears were confirmed as she took an obviously known route to the more affluent areas of the city. Straight to the mansion of her gallant hero Vicomte, and the wind was knocked out of me. _Oh, Christine, no_…

Pain came first, intense as a vice squeezing the beats from my heart; anger was chosen as the mask to hide behind. Foolish, _foolish_ girl! Let her beg help from her Vicomte, pray he take her away from her monster husband! She belonged to me, and if I had to, I would go in and drag her out by the hair! It would seem barbaric but no more than locking her underground for the rest of her days as punishment! And foolish me right back to play into her game, choose gentleness, not force my rights upon her! She probably laughed when my back was turned and savored the control she had over me. Damn her!

Keeping to the brush alongside the house, I watched her rush to the door and knock frantically with a quick look cast back over her shoulder. _Ah, scared to be found out, Christine? Worried your pitiable husband will hurt you for your deceptions?_

The lying, little chit was greeted by the maid and explained with breathless words that she needed to see the Vicomte right away. As she was brought inside, I surveyed the house, looking for my own entrance point.

Luckily, I did not need to add forced entry to my list of sins. As I strode to the back of the house, I came upon my rival himself, sitting out on his terrace alone. It was a bizarre picture indeed: the Vicomte de Chagny in his dressing gown, emaciated and shadowed, pale as I was to be sure. Was he pining over his loss and broken heart? _Pathetic_. I knew that route well.

"Raoul…"

Ah, that sweet voice! I shuddered as much as _he_ did to hear its colors, but to my desolation, I watched the Vicomte's eyes widen as he stumbled dumbstruck to his feet with Christine's approach. She never hesitated to embrace him, and the knife drove deeper into my chest.

"Christine, Christine," the bastard Vicomte muttered with tears in his eyes as he lifted a hand and stroked her curls, curls that had _my _name written about their coils. "I have been worried out of my mind for you!"

She drew back and surveyed him critically, brow lining at the evidence of his condition. "Raoul, you're not well! What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing of real concern now that I have you here," he concluded, but his body couldn't seem to support a stand any longer, and he eased himself back into his chair. "It appears…torture chambers leave repercussions."

Christine's blue eyes were saturated in her worry as she dragged a chair close to his and stammered, "This is because of Erik's chamber? And you've suffered all these days, ill and weak, dear boy?"

"Of course. Why else wouldn't I have returned for you? Surely you must have assumed I would be back at first chance to get you out of that monster's clutches."

This _monster_, as the Vicomte dubbed, repressed an urge to lunge from the shadows. One quick motion, and I could have that Vicomte's throat between my hands!

"Why?" Christine's question dangled in the air and surprised both her suitors as I fixed my focus on her and tried to understand.

"What do you mean _why_?" the Vicomte demanded for me. "You're his prisoner! You signed your life over to save me! I would never leave you to such a doomed fate!"

She seemed confused at his vehement declamations and stated as if correcting him, "I married Erik; I'm his wife. What could you possibly argue against that? If you came and tried to take me, he has _legal_ proof and could claim _you_ were the one at fault."

"It was a manipulated marriage! No court would uphold his side of things, not with both our word against him. Whatever it takes! I'll find a way, Christine," he vowed and stretched a hand toward hers. "But you're here now! That must mean you found a means of escape. Let us go straight to the court before he has a chance to realize it."

Every muscle in my body tensed with raged aggravation. How _dare_ that Vicomte! And woe to them both if they believed his plan would work! I should have killed him the first time!

But to my surprise, I saw Christine waver in uncertainty, rising from her seat and avoiding the Vicomte's seeking hand. "Escape?" she questioned with a doubtful shake of her head. "No, he let me go for a walk. He trusted I would return within the hour, and I have every intention of honoring my word. I just…needed to make sure you were all right. I've felt so _guilty_ for all you endured because of me. But now…everything is over and done with, and all is settled."

"Settled!" he interjected, and although he seemed he would rise and touch her, he did no more than shift in his seat and falter. _Perhaps I should bless that torture chamber!_

"And what do you expect me to do?" he snapped instead. "Leave you to suffer as his _wife_? How could I even consider such a thing? I _love _you. _I_ was supposed to be your husband before he took that right from me. But it doesn't have to be so. I have a name in this city and the law on my side. I can make sure we win our happy ending if you only tell the _truth_ to the courts."

She shook her head again. "But the truth is I married him of my choice."

"Coerced to save my life-"

"It doesn't matter. It was my own proposition that I would be willing, and I could not lie or exaggerate to a court."

I was oddly proud of her for standing up for our marriage. It was the exact opposite of what I expected to hear and kept me leaning in and hanging on her every word.

"But tell me this," the Vicomte pushed with an edge of irritation. "Is this marriage real and binding, or is it just a farce to keep you there? Did he…force himself upon you?"

My hands fisted in midair at such gall, livid to the core of my being. What nerve! What uncouth audacity! Our personal affairs were none of his concern, but then again, an unconsummated marriage gave lead way to his cause, didn't it? And would shame convince Christine to lie and give the Vicomte the fuel he needed?

I stared intently at her and watched her shift nervous and uncomfortable on her feet. I didn't think she'd answer, but her red cheeks said it all anyway.

"Oh, Christine," the Vicomte crooned with pain creasing his sallow features as if she'd lived through the worst catastrophe imaginable.

"It wasn't…forced," she spoke up, and I wasn't sure if I should know gratitude when her tone lacked conviction. "I mean…I had to let him, of course. I vowed a real marriage to him. …I had to prove I was not deceiving him and make sure we were all safe. …You cannot possibly understand Erik, Raoul. He _always_ doubts, even with proof in his hands, and I knew if I refused, he would never believe that I had every intention of staying with him."

"Until _I_ came for you, you mean," the Vicomte desperately corrected.

"No," she replied, "I signed a marriage license. I intended to honor the implication that I would remain with him. The rest of it…that part I consented to because I needed him to believe me."

"That monster!" the Vicomte cursed again. "He destroyed us, Christine! And the selfish bastard won in the end! God knows what he's putting you through!"

"But you're wrong!" she declared back and came to stand before his chair, shaking as she made assertions. "He's been…_sweet_ and kind to me. He hasn't forced anything upon me but his company, not since that first night, and…I've enjoyed being with him."

I gripped her every word and yanked them to my heart, fighting a rush of tears, and anger drained out to revel in such beauty. I would have concentrated solely on her and forgot the other member of her audience, but _he_ caught her hand and forced her focus.

"Christine," he hissed, "you speak like you're falling _in love_ with the monster! Don't you see this sudden change of face is another manipulation. You said he used a similar tactic when he deceived you into calling him an angel. He's putting on a _role_."

"Maybe it's not a role," she argued back. "Maybe this is him, and the Opera Ghost was the real role. Maybe we were both _wrong_ and judged a pretense instead of the man beneath it."

"Christine!" Raoul shouted to make her cease words that were keeping me alive. "He's a _monster_, a murdering madman! Why can he hypnotize you into forgetting those imperative facts? Every time he appeals to you in this angel guise, you falter your morals and sense of right and wrong and follow him like his devoted little student again!" Huffing a breath for calm, the Vicomte attempted with gentle appeal, "You know what he is and the things he's done. He would have _killed me_ that night without your sacrifice. Doesn't that mean _anything_ to you?"

"Of course it does!" she replied and held his gaze with a tenderness I envied. "I would never condone his actions or the sins on his soul. I just…don't think either of us understand the impetus behind such atrocity."

"A murderer is a murderer. What needs to be understood in that?" he spouted and grabbed her hand, clinging to it tight. "Don't go back. Stay with me, and I will keep you hidden and safe. He can rot in that underground hell alone, but it is a travesty to steal your future the way he has. You cannot tell me after the plans we made and vows we spoke to one another that your heart isn't as agonized as mine in this turn of events. We were meant to be together."

But she shook her head and concluded, "It's too late to ponder what should have been. I'm _his wife_. I can't run from the fate I consented to live. But…it isn't a horror, Raoul. Believe me when I say that he's been good to me."

"I don't believe in full transformations of heart, not where a demon is concerned," the Vicomte spat and brought her hand to his cheek. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to leap through the brush and pry her free, but I needed to hear her words with a necessity that halted my heartbeat. She would not tell me her secrets from her own lips, and this was more dignified than asking.

"I'm sorry, Raoul," she whispered with genuine affection as she pulled away. "I have to get back, but I'll come and check on you again…if I can."

The Vicomte's hurt was exposed in a wounded expression, but he added sharply, "If this monster has indeed changed into your sweet and gentle admirer, then put it to the test. Ask for your freedom, and see his reaction. I am doubtless it will prove the façade is an empty sham. One wrong word, and he will be the raging madman again. You think you are safe with him." Raoul shook his head. "Never forget who you are dealing with, Christine."

She seemed to absorb words I hated to hear, but within the moment, she took her leave and I was half a step in her shadow.

Back through the city, and I noticed her pensive demeanor as she walked and wondered how many of the Vicomte's words had left an imprint behind. Would she follow his command and make his request for freedom? And what would I say if she did? Leaping to temper was irrational, but simply saying no made me her captor still. Damn that Vicomte! I had had such hope erupt in one conversation, and now it was unstable and slowly being pulled out from under me.

She arrived at the hidden entrance to the catacombs right on time and lingered back, watching the bodies pass on the nearby sidewalk with her meditative stare. I didn't want to give her much longer with her mind and made my appearance within the minute. Her blue gaze lighted upon me, and I saw her tossed back into reality with a soft discontented sigh.

Feigning an aloof demeanor, I surveyed her head to toe and asked, "Did you have a nice walk, my dear?"

To my absolute astonishment, she crossed the gap between us and suddenly embraced me, pressing her face against my heart for the briefest moment. I was so thrown that I never had the chance to hug back before she drew away again. But I contemplated if it was an act of apology for the deception I wasn't supposed to know about…or perhaps a hint of goodbye.

"May I ask you for something?" she bid, soft and solemn, and my heart dropped like a leaden weight in its cage. Here it came, the moment she made her loyalties clear and played the Vicomte's game for him, and I had yet to determine what my answer to a request for freedom would be.

"Anything," I tightly replied and cringed to imagine the words hitting the air.

Her gaze remained somber. "The next time we come up into the world, will you take a walk with me?"

I went numb at the unexpected inquiry and shivered so hard I almost forgot to answer, stammering in bewilderment, "Yes…yes, of course…whatever you wish."

Walk with her… It wasn't a pleading for freedom; it was pleading for my company. My chest ached with emotions I longed to wrap her in and bundle about her.

Still, a hint of dubiousness hovered, and I pushed against my heart's judgment, "And…is that all? Such a simple request! You have nothing more to ask of me?"

She tilted her head so that dark curls shifted and tumbled over her shoulder but concluded with the tinge of a smile, "Take me home."

Never a hesitation, she slid her hand into mine, and I reveled in the fact that _this_ was the hand that the Vicomte dared touch. And look where it resided now! Exactly where it belonged! I laced our fingers together and claimed it again as _mine_ as I obeyed her request and brought her back into the darkness with me.


	3. Chapter 3

It only took until we walked in the door for Christine's curious mind to ask why I had none of the provisions I was supposed to have gathered. A lie was necessary when I could not tell her that I spent the entire time following her or that there had actually been no provisions for this journey to being with. I only said they did not have what we needed and I would go out again soon. No other details. The next time I made the trek, it needed to be alone. Christine's presence was precisely the distraction I'd dubbed it from the start, and I'd never get anything accomplished acting as her ghost instead.

A day laden in hope left me all the more adamant in finding the route to a full love story and unlocking the door to Christine's desires. They were there beneath the surface and could blaze as bright as mine if I found the way to light the fuse. All I knew for certain was that it had to happen soon. I ached for her every second we were together and hid it just as well as an angel had. It was a tragedy. I was letting her grow to believe this companionship between us was enough to constitute our marriage. If I did not act soon, I would lose the chance entirely and surrender physical pleasures simply to keep her happy with me.

That night after supper, we sang together at the piano. Her voice was the greatest source of beauty in my life, and I pondered ways to get it back to the stage where it belonged…_after_ we were secure in our marriage. I would allow a happy, loved wife on the stage, not a tentative girl wavering between calling me husband or jailer.

She was a beacon light in the dark when she sang and seemed to savor every time I joined her. We could make something too exquisite for the mortal world to hold, and I could not halt the connotations drawn together in my desirous mind. Our voices wrapping about one another's in a sensuous taste of ecstasy… I knew _somehow_ the same pleasure could be translated to bodies, and then touches wouldn't be intangible hyperbole. They would have hands as their instrument and fingers to stroke and burn. I found hints of the passion I wanted Christine to know when we sang and she released inhibition and innocence in favor of feeling to her soul. But how to get it out of her always was the mystery.

When music faded to empty sound, she lingered in my presence, curling upon the couch cushions and watching me with gentle eyes. I was still unaccustomed to such looks. Smiles were one thing and could be fabricated; I was never certain. But tender emotion in blue colors extended to her core as she held my gaze, and I could not suppress a violent shiver.

"Why do you stare at me so?" I finally found the strength to ask as I awkwardly sat in my chair, never once averting my returned stare.

"You're still wearing your mask," she stated with a blatancy that surprised me. "You haven't taken it off since we returned."

"And…you pay attention to such a trivial thing?"

"It isn't trivial," she corrected. "Ever since the night of our wedding, you replace it at times I say something wrong or react unjustly. …You use it to punish me, and I cannot reason what I've done this evening to deserve it."

What indeed… I had visions of the Vicomte in my mind's eye to state her sin, but…that was not the reason I was yet her _masked _husband. It amazed me that she made her own definition for why when in truth, I had kept the mask as _self_-punishment for a guilt-ridden conscience. The mask was the shield when _I_ _needed_ it and had more to do with my shortcomings than hers.

"Christine… Why do you perceive I punish you?" I demanded back and wondered if she would tell me truths I was not supposed to know.

But she changed things to a new direction. "…I haven't been a very good wife, have I?"

In my head flickered images of her bare, pale body, and a sudden swell of anticipation attacked. Did she mean to concede tonight? Was this her way of propositioning me for every detail I ached to possess again?

But I kept hesitation in the forefront and questioned for solid pledges. "What do you consider constitutes a 'good' wife? If you do not fit the role, I do not fit the role of 'good' husband either. I should not be afraid to be without the mask in front of my wife, but that is just what I am."

"Why? I've given you no reason to be, not since… Perhaps our past does not need to be doled out tonight," she concluded and set her cheek upon her palm, staring at me in the dim firelight with those same tender emotions. "Will you remove it now, or must I endure your distance longer still?"

"Perhaps _you_ should perform the task for me," I concluded, studying her and trying to read the pensive layers of her thoughts. "Every time you've done it, it has been an act of betrayal. Now…you look at me so gently. Maybe horror won't exist as horror in my memory any longer if I have something pleasant in its place."

A small nod was her answer, and I held my breath to observe her slow rise and approach. Her gaze remained gentle, even as her fingers nimbly fitted about the edge of my mask. As if they were well-versed at the action and had done it many times, they guided it free and exposed my face to the unthreatening beams of fire glow. No fear, no horror, nothing but that tenderness etching out the round shapes of her blue eyes.

"Is that more to your liking?" I asked before I could chastise myself. "A freak show for your perusal instead of the semblance of a face? I suppose the mask is a lie, and you prefer the truth, don't you, Christine? Your husband is no fair prince charming. You want to wallow in the pity of it all."

She shook her head, and I gazed at the bobbed motion of her curls. With firelight to dance upon their shiny surface, hints of strawberry red wrote the same illusions and painted a new hue altogether. "No," she decided, "I would consider it unfair only if I were unhappy or regretted the choice I made."

"No regret?" I scoffed and purposely tilted my deformed face into the light so that its distortions were not softened but instead defined. "You could have had a handsome Vicomte in my place. Perhaps you don't know regret because he lives still and your sacrifice made you love's martyr."

"_You_ have born the sacrifice between us, _ange_. You wanted a wife, and I…haven't lived up to your standard. Are you disappointed in me?"

_Yes_. But I wasn't about to admit that to her worry-fringed eyes. So I decided, "We're _both_ learning what a marriage is, Christine, but…to have you here with me and know you are not a victim of misery and agonized suffering for it is a blessing I cannot take for granted."

She accepted my words with gratitude in her smile as her gaze trailed my face and its demented planes. "Will you leave the mask off while we are home together?"

"If you wish it."

A brighter smile yet, and I never doubted it. I could reason it would not be easy to look at such an abomination and fabricate a smile. No, I would have found its crack.

"I should go to bed," she softly bid, but I thought I heard disappointment between the letters.

"Christine, will you…kiss me goodnight?"

She nodded, somewhat meek and shy, and leaned over my lap to press her mouth to mine. The last time we'd done this, I'd tasted her and seemingly frightened her away when kisses had been only fantasies since. This time I let her determine our depth.

Whatever progress we'd made in the art of kissing seemed to return and expand. She did not kiss me in chaste and novice ability; she moved her lips against mine with the sweetest pressure, bringing me into her pattern and making me shiver with that ever-present ache.

I felt it an accurate assumption to conclude that she enjoyed kissing me. Maybe because I never tried to hide my weakness and delight. I tensed and moaned into her movements, tremors passing my shoulders that she certainly felt. Power was addicting, and I felt sure my Christine loved the power I willingly granted her.

When she drew back, she kept her flawless face near mine as we both regained our footing, and unable to help myself, I captured my once designated alias of angel teacher and commanded in cajoling tones, "Touch my face."

I was uncertain if such a request would ignite only adverse disgust and repulsion and wanted to swallow the words the instant they struck the air between us. Perhaps she'd consider it another husbandly order, more privileges put upon her when she'd chosen the innocent path of childlike cowardice the last time. And I stared at her with apprehensive eyes, awaiting her response without a single breath into my lungs. Oh God, this was too much! Had I damaged the bridge we'd been constructing between our hearts with this one perverse wish?

Blue eyes traveled my features first with a flicker in their depths that I knew well and almost laughed in relief to observe. _Curiosity_. A sort of intrigue and speculation what it meant to concede. I watched her ponder before her fingers extended and their tips met my flesh.

I let out a groan with first contact, and it pushed her interest onward. She was…_awkward_, and yet I dubbed her stuttered touches endearing because it was obvious she wanted to please me and doubted her ability. Trembles gave her away as she stayed intently focused on the task of following the blueprint of my bones and outlining the unnatural features of my face.

"Does…the texture disgust you?" I finally found the courage to ask when her finger tiptoed across my cheekbone, knowing how sparse the flesh covering was.

She met my intent gaze only a second and loosed a sigh before words poured out. "It…it's _different_ and cold, rougher than I thought it would be. But nothing worthy of disgust."

"Are you lying to me, Christine?" I demanded with a frantic edge; I validated my fanatical urgency with the one proof that _no one_ had touched my face before.

Meeting my eyes with adamancy in hers, she stated, "No, I'm not lying."

"Prove it," I pushed and practiced more persuasions. "_Kiss me_ where you touch."

Another challenge I threw in her path and waited for her to show her true emotions. Kiss something so heinous? It was as if I asked for sins. Certainly, good Catholic girls believed God would smote them for committing an act so vile, so repugnant, so against the natural order of life. Kiss the demon's exposed bones and mutilated flesh… If she rebuked and cowered, I would actually understand.

Christine was no courageous woman, so I was unsurprised with her reluctance and the manner in which she leaned back and scrutinized a moment in utter silence. _Where was my expected refusal?_

But with apprehension in place and thriving, she delicately brushed her mouth to the sallow flesh of my jaw, and I lost a cry as ripples raced my body from that spot of blissful inception to every extremity. She seemed amused to realize she could have such an effect, and creeping nearer, she made another attempt, this time in feather-light kisses across my skeleton cheekbone.

Was this sin? Were we damned for indulging it? It was lewd and depraved, and I couldn't stop my mind from spinning its thoughts of my darling Christine with her mouth upon a corpse. I favored the illusion of ordinary man, and when we were lips to lips, it was easy to trick away the bad details. But as she kissed what disgusted even _me_, it was too vivid and real. I was a monster, a nightmare's beast, and how could I expect a woman as beautiful as Christine to ever feel genuine desire for me? She would be told to take such emotions to confession and beg penance for her soul.

Her soft, warm mouth rested idly in the place where I bore no nose to kiss. But she kissed gaping holes as if they were just so normal, and though I knew I shouldn't be allowing this, I couldn't refuse. Oh God, _why_ refuse? The devil tempted with pleasures of the flesh; I'd gladly go to hell if this were a game at Satan's whim and I could taste more before I burned in the fires.

"Christine," I gasped and knew my breath grazed her sweet, perfect chin on its way to stir her curls, "and my mouth… Kiss my misshapen mouth again and set your seal. Oh, please, Christine, taste me. Use your tongue. Stop holding back."

She didn't, and I went stiff as her mouth found mine and pressed, flattening the scope of my swollen upper lip and making it kissable in its fit against hers. Control dwindled and slid beyond my grasp, and the second she timidly obeyed my command and let the tip of her tongue graze the seam of my lips, I moaned, deep and guttural, and caught her shoulders in fitful hands.

My urgency broke our bubble, and to my dismay, she sought to break free, recoiling from a kiss and stealing that mouth I yearned to feel over every inch of my body. Oh, my thoughts were too heated, body too aching, and I obeyed desire and kept a firm grip, dragging her onto my lap and deterring her struggle.

"Erik, please don't."

"Why? You're my _wife_," I reminded, and desire creased my features and made its need vehement and aggressive.

"You said you wouldn't."

"I won't force you," I promised again, but holding her wide, blue eyes in my desperation, I insisted, "I'll _beg_ you instead. _Please_, Christine. I cannot bear this ache anymore. Please let me have you!"

Yanking her closer, I pressed my disfigured face to the flesh of her chest, tickled by her bodice's lace trim as I surrendered to more perverted longings and nuzzled her skin. She smelled so sweet, and the aroma made my hardness throb with flashing memory of the one night I'd had her. I'd carried her scent away with me that night, all over my skin. It had been agony just to wash it away when I longed to wear its perfume forever.

"Erik, stop!" she gasped, and yet she held frozen in place and did not shrink back from my disfigured caress. No, she let me rub my cheek to the swell of her breasts with no more than her flustered breaths in my ears.

"Why must I obey you?" I demanded with the hint of harshness and laid fervent kisses to the skin above her neckline. "Does my mouth on your body cause disgust? Are you repulsed that I'd dare? Do you fear I will _contaminate_ you with my disease?"

"No, no…"

"Then _why_? I _ache_, Christine, and you are my wife."

"But…" She squirmed in my grasp, and I tilted my face to meet her eyes, hating the silhouettes of tears. "You said you wouldn't make me do it again."

"Tell me why you deny me. I'll be gentle with you; I vow it. I will be tender and loving, and…I'll learn to do it right." I pleaded even though it shamed me to speak such humiliating weakness. If it eased her mind, I'd wear abashment like a badge of bravery. "I promise to learn the points where I am ignorant and how to please you. _Please_ stop making me suffer this alone."

I couldn't stop when she was so soft atop me, and falling victim to desire's madness, I grabbed her hand and yanked it to my body, forcing it against my hardness and shuddering as I was burned through every layer.

"Oh God," I cried out and gasped with her. "Do you feel what you do to me, Christine? _Only_ you, only ever you! Please, let me have you!"

For one shuddering breath, she succumbed to my coerced seduction and relaxed against me, her hand quivering but unresisting against my erection. And then so quick that I did not have time to react, she jerked out of my hold and darted off my lap, putting necessary space between us as she stared at me with betrayed and wild eyes.

"You said you _wouldn't_," she repeated, backing toward the door, and I felt the shame heat in red beneath my skin. Had I truly almost forced her?

"I won't," I somberly concluded, sneering self-disgust. "But just tell me _why_ you are so adamant to refuse your husband. Is it disgust? Does it run further than what you once claimed for my face? Does the very concept of my body within yours again repulse you to the point of hysterics and refutation? Or…is this a sense of betrayal to your last fiancé?"

"Raoul?" she questioned with a shake of her head.

Oh, that name! Of course I had been the one to resurrect his threat but merely to hear the letters in her voice… Fisting my hands against my armrests, I stifled the instinctual urge to grab her and shake the sound from her lips forever.

"I don't know what you mean," she quickly continued, and I wondered how much _guilt _thrived in the background. And if I brought up her afternoon appointment with my rival, would she lie and insist it never happened?

"Don't you?" I retorted and leapt to my feet, stalking a fitful path toward the hearth. Glaring into the flames and imagining their dance as hellfire, I laid another accusation before her, one that churned in the back of my head no matter how I tried to denounce it. "But it's an unavoidable truth that you planned for him to be your husband. _He_ was supposed to be the man bound to your side, the one to take your virginity. I must seem a petty thief when you'd meant for your body to be _his_. I am your husband, and yet it does not account as much as betraying your former fiancé and realizing he will know a monster took your innocence. Every time I touch you, it is an act against the noble Vicomte."

Tears shimmering in her eyes, she demanded with only the slightest waver, "Why must you speak of the Vicomte now?"

"Because he lives and breathes in our marriage bed!" I growled at her. For all the good to come with the truths I'd overheard today, there were the bad. She'd done what she'd felt obligated to do on our wedding night, and now I had a wife who ran to check on another man's well-being at first chance. It hardly seemed fair and was intensified by the un-cooled flames of desire licking at my veins.

"Please, stop this," she whimpered, her shaking hands gripping the back of the couch. "It isn't true-"

"Then _tell me_ what is! I want to _touch_ you. There is no sin in that when a marriage vow solders us together. God will not condemn us even if your husband is more definable as a corpse. I am a _man_ still, and I love and desire the same as your Vicomte. You intended to give all of yourself to him. Why am I not fitting to stand in that place? I don't understand, Christine! Is this reaction purely cast in disgust?"

She weakly shook her head and refused to meet my eye, leaving me unconvinced before she softly whispered, "I'm afraid."

"Of me?"

Her nod was barely decipherable, but she softly replied, "The last time…I lied and made it seem that I knew what was expected, but…I didn't have any idea. I didn't know anything beyond a kiss, and when you touched me…what we did… It terrified me." Before I could find assurances, she quickly went on in rushed breaths, still refusing to meet my eye as her cheeks tinted red. "Call me naïve; call me a _child_, but you _hurt_ me, and I couldn't ask you to stop because as you said, it was your right and my duty; I had to permit you. It didn't matter that I was afraid. And if I'd told you, you would have assumed it was a manipulation meant to deny you. I wasn't _allowed_ to be afraid."

I listened to her and wondered at the honesty in her words. I had been so determined to claim her that night, half an act of pure possession, and she was right: had she appealed to me in fear and asked me to stop, I would have believed it more games and a biding of time until she could find freedom from her depraved husband.

"I know I've been a disappointment to you," she whispered as tears tumbled from her cheeks and made darker spots on the couch's upholstery. "I've been terrible at being your wife."

And wasn't I just as terrible as husband if I hadn't learned how to please my wife and ease her into desire without fright attached? There were points that were so blatantly _my_ fault that I felt sick on their heinousness. She'd been afraid of me and ignorant what consummating our marriage meant, and all I'd done was force myself on her. The title of monster truly befitted me.

As the knife of dread stabbed my gut, I could not bear to gaze at her any longer. If she felt humiliation to share her musings, I felt sheer self-disgust to bear their weight and swallowed against unacceptable tears. …I hadn't wanted to hurt or frighten her. I saw the past days as atoning for any stolen liberties and rebuilding our structure, but while I'd hoped to attain something greater and a passionate love story in the end, she'd been determined to retain walls and never allow me in their perimeters.

It was all innocence and the naïveté of a girl on the cusp of womanhood. I'd let her be a child too long, feeding dreams of angels, and then the Vicomte had fueled fairytales with his seeming hero presence. Maybe both of us had preferred her in that childlike, sugarcoated state of mind because neither of us had shown her the path to reality and adulthood. We'd perpetuated the illusion, and now I had a wife who was half a child and wouldn't let herself desire because I'd made her afraid. Such a twisted paradox!

With a sudden growl I could not contain, I fled her presence. I needed to breathe and think, to plot a means to fix our doomed future. Like the monster still, I locked her in our house, carrying a doubt that she'd stay if doors to escape were left unguarded. She liked being a child, and the Vicomte would indulge her even if I no longer would. No, it was time to grow up.

* * *

Ignorance was both Christine's and my downfall. To mend our broken seams, I needed knowledge and was convicted to finding it. But I learned one definite point as I began my search: the female body was a mystery. Even the sources were baffled by its construction and details. How frustrating this fruitless process was! Or maybe it was solely because I lived in a prudish society determined to engage in sexual endeavors behind locked doors and then either deny their existence or flower them up to nonsense.

In Persia, sensuality was celebrated and looked upon without the stringent judgment of this so-called industrialized world. Had I been back in its exotic lands, I probably would have had answers in spades and found tome after tome of solid, valid information. Here…I wandered libraries to no avail, relying on books when speaking to another human being seemed ludicrous. But libraries had too much government influence, and the sort of books I was after were banned. I had to settle with medical volumes, biology in its crudest sense, but again, the facts were sparse and over-laden in large, incomprehensible words.

It was somewhat astounding to me. Were men simply expected to _know_ the delicate secrets of the female form? Or perhaps most men didn't _care_ to know. It was so easy to concern oneself with one's own pleasures and forget the rest; _I_ had done exactly that on our wedding night and would not again. Christine deserved more than that.

With little more than the silhouette of parts in my head, I roamed the city streets as night dragged on and sought to devise a course of action. First and foremost, I had to make sure she was not afraid. I had to convince her to be my muse and learn what I lacked with her body beneath my hands. I would be gentle and listen to her every breath and sound. I would put a patience I didn't have first and build desire so gradually that fear must become inconsequential.

The plan seemed plausible…if I could gain her consent, but after an evening of eruption, it was difficult to gauge her reaction in thought alone. All I could do was try.

So with resolution in my steps, I returned home, curious if I would have to enter her room uninvited, wake her in her bed, …turn her childlike dreams into something akin to nightmares again.

But her bedroom door was open and light pooled out to greet me, luring me to enter, and I followed its siren like an eager moth. She was seated beneath the covers of her bed in her nightdress, a random book spread upon her lap, but blue eyes immediately rose to my presence and surveyed me with apprehension.

"I was worried," she stated without prompting. "After you left as you did, I wasn't sure you'd return tonight."

She slowly emerged from her blanket cocoon, her feet landing lightly upon the carpet as her nightgown tumbled and pooled about her shape. Before she could decide if she had courage enough to approach my dark shape, I did it for her, wandering near and lifting my mask away without hesitation. She said I punished _her_ when I wore it, and that was not my intent tonight. No, I slid to my knees in front of her, bowing like a reverent servant and posed penance instead.

"I'm sorry I've frightened you before, Christine," I softly bid. "I'm sorry I've been a sinner and a monster, taken lives, hurt others, …hurt _you_. I'm sorry I forced this marriage upon your shoulders and made free will into a curse. I wish I could argue madness but I did it all knowingly and aware with the blessed name of love on my lips. It should never be offered as an excuse, but I acted in the love I yearned for _you_ to feel back. I beseech you to forgive a foolish heart. …I've never loved anyone before, Christine. I couldn't do it right if I didn't know _how_."

I never raised my bowed head. But her little hands suddenly touched my jaw, timid and light, and she lifted my face and made me regard her. Oh, for that look in her eyes I would worship at her feet forever!

"It's too late to hold grudges for every folly we've committed against one another," she gently spoke. "We're married, and our future does not need to be contingent on our past."

"Married…" I repeated the most important word and hated to use it as my platform. "Yes, we are _married_, and I have not been a very good husband to you either. I beg of you to let me show you that I can be suited for the role."

I glimpsed her hesitation as she blankly asked, "How?"

Heaving a weighty breath, I whispered with the edge of hoarseness on my cords, "Let me make love to you, Christine, the way I should have that first night."

She shivered on her feet, fingers coiling into the palms against my jaw. "But-"

"I don't mean to force you, and I would rather not dub duties and rights when such terms are cold and emotionless. I want to show you _love_, and that is what I ask of you. Will you let me love you, Christine?"

"…If I say no, what then?" she demanded, edging a step back from my supplicant pose. "You said you will not force or demand in the sake of duty, so what will you do?"

"Beg," I replied without reluctance. "To the point of shame and desperation. To the extent of offering compensation for liberties taken. You went to see your Vicomte today," I stated her deception and watched her eyes go wide, but before she could utter blame-filled apologies, I held up defenseless hands. "He thinks you married a monster, bedded a monster. Give me one chance to prove differently. If you still carry fear and fright, even a fraction of regret, I will let you free of your vow, Christine. I will rip up that marriage contract, and no one need know it ever existed. You could have the future you once envisioned: a lovely Vicomtesse with the luxury of a life in the light. I am doubtless your young man will take you back with open arms and never a care that a monster's hands have been upon you when he already claims it a violation. Is it such a sacrifice to allow me once more and earn liberation for your concession?"

"You…followed me today? All along, you knew I'd been to see the Vicomte?"

She might condemn, but we both knew hers was the greater sin, so I nodded and spoke candidly, "I couldn't fathom losing you, and if there was even a chance you'd run… When I saw that you went to _him_, I felt certain my suspicions were correct."

"But they weren't! I had no intention-"

"I know. I saw, and…you surprised me with your loyalty. You made our marriage mean something extraordinary even if you didn't believe your own words. You could have followed his plan and abandoned your madman husband, but you came back to me. Perhaps it wasn't what you wanted, but you kept your word and now I vow to keep mine. Let me love you and prove I can be something more than a monster, and I will let you go if that is what you wish. _Anything_ you wish, _ange_. Please, Christine."

"You beg because you _desire_ me," she said, plain and without sentiment.

"Yes, but I ache more to make _you_ desire _me_. I want to teach you what pleasure feels like. Will you permit me?" I inquired it as if I were some sort of connoisseur and certainly not as unconfident as I felt. I needed her to believe in me as she once had carried blind faith for an angel. For all I myself had placed on the line, if this would be my only opportunity before I lost her, I was adamant that I would do everything I could to achieve my goal. It couldn't only be about knowledge, not when _love_ had no set criteria or class of learning, and the heart had to figure it out with intuition and feeling. If I loved her, the path must appear.

She still had given no answer, wavering on her feet and trembling in a manner it was impossible to ignore. "If…if I did, would you promise to stop if I asked?"

"Yes," I replied within the second. "Yes, Christine, you need but speak the command and I _will_ stop." And I meant it with one memory of her admission over the last time. …She'd been afraid, wanted to ask me to stop but deemed it _duty_ to continue. Duty? I abhorred that word; it had no heartbeat.

She lingered away, her trepidation scripted upon her beautiful features, but she extended a hand that paused midair before finishing its trek to my knelt form. I closed my eyes with anticipated bliss in the breath before her fingertips grazed my damaged face, always a question hovering upon the surface of her skin. She asked in touch if what she did was acceptable, and I moaned softly and prayed it gave her fulfillment and even an inkling of my thrilled response.

"Christine," I breathed, and as her fingertips brushed my lips, I laid a kiss to their sweet gesture. And yet…this wasn't what I was after. Yes, she touched, and that was new and delicious, leaving me half a step from sheer happiness, but I wanted _her_ to know this sensation instead.

Opening my eyes, I adored her and cherished the trust she presented despite its hesitant exterior. "I want to touch you," I managed to mutter, blatant and with a huskiness I could not control. "May I?"

It seemed to take a great effort for her concession, but she finally nodded, small and fear-fringed, and I felt the nerves in her constant stare as I slowly rose to my full height and reached for her. I was not about to let desire steal me away completely like the last time, yet I could not halt the soft moan that escaped my lips to undress her and uncover flawless reaches of pale skin. Dear God, I'd spent days fantasizing this gloriousness, and the pictures in my head fell so far short of reality.

I hadn't taken the time in our last encounter to memorize as I now did. I'd overlooked the random imperfections in lieu of the beauty of the whole package. Why were the flaws the most sensual part of her? The occasional freckle marred without pattern: one near her belly button, one upon her thigh, one alongside a perfect breast. They were _exquisite_. As I connected from one dot to the next, I noted some had always been in plain sight, a couple on her forearms, one on her knuckle. Why had I never cherished their sweetness before?

The body exposed to my study shivered and shuddered with every unstable breath, and anxious to consider that perhaps she thought I was not pleased, I bid in thick consonants, "You are the most beautiful creature God ever made. It astounds me that He could create a beast like me and pour sheer ugliness into my mold and then with the same hands, sculpt something of pure brilliance and light. You _must be_ an angel trapped on earth, and will I then burn in hell for laying my repulsive hands on your ethereal body?"

Perhaps, but I didn't care. I extended shaking limbs and rested my palms upon her smooth shoulders, feeling a tremor go through her. Purposely gentle, I guided both hands down the lengths of her arms, feather-light, and I took pride in the goose bumps I glimpsed arise to coat her skin because she did not flinch or shrink away, did not ask me to stop. I prayed that meant she felt something pleasant instead.

As I raced the touch up her arms again, I realized something and called myself a fool for ever thinking otherwise. No book had told me _how_ to touch her to make goose bumps and the slight shivers beneath my hands. They'd done nothing but outline the female form in vague terminology. Right now I followed tenderness and its magnetic pulls, and I felt more sure of myself than I ever had.

Studying her at every second, I continued the sculpted path of her warm, soft flesh, following her collarbone and pausing at her beautiful throat. How I thanked God if He were the one that blessed her with the vocal cords contained within its protection! It earned an extra caress from my fingertips, and before I moved onward, I dared to lean close and press a timid kiss to the spot. It felt as if I kissed her sacred voice, and I could envision my token of affection seeping through her skin and grazing the folds inside with love.

As I drew back, my gaze sought hers, anxious to read her response to my frivolity, but her returned stare was laden in such emotion! It stole my breath and told me without words that she felt what I'd given and savored it.

With the touch of an adoring smile on my lips, I guided my hands onward. I might have told myself in clear and inarguable words that I touched for _her_ pleasure, but I could not halt the jolt of passion that breezed through my veins to have her breasts in my palms. Touching her there was too intimate and sensual not to cause heated arousal within me. No, I wouldn't let my own fervency overtake this time. It said to grope and tug, to let tensed fingers play, but this had to be _for her_. Gentle needed to be my starting point.

My breaths were ragged in the air between us, so much that I almost missed the sound she made as my thumbs circled her nipples. The smallest whimper escaping with her exhalation, and I was terrified to misconstrue its meaning. I held my breath and waited for words to stop all action for good, but…they didn't sound, so I repeated the motion with more certainty, scrutinizing her flushed face and low-lidded blue eyes that refused to meet me.

No denial… Not even as I cupped with my full hands and flicked my fingertips over the hardened peaks. Nothing but another whimper. _Oh God, please let her want this_… Before I could second-guess my intention, I bent and pressed my misshapen lips in a reverent kiss to one pink tip. A similar caress to her voice box had been met with affection; this one was met with a violent shudder that shook the body before me and made me halt and keep unthreatening, a kiss suspended in time as I waited for my wild doe to calm.

Such a torturous test of patience! But as instinct bid me to take more, I had to clasp the reins and simply content myself with the feel of her hardened nipple pressing against my bloated upper lip. How I ached to swallow it in the cavern of my mouth! But I applied a dwindling restraint and fisted my hands in my desperation, nipping my palms with my fingernails and forcing focus on the minor sting.

The rapid, erratic pulse beneath my kiss gradually found a semi-stable pattern, still much too intense but calmer than our start, and finally, I relaxed my rigid stance. Gazing up at her closed eyes and creased features, I parted my lips ever so slightly, slow and never a danger until I had her breast in my mouth. I could not suppress the moan in my lungs with the deliciousness of it.

The whimper I anticipated was a cry this time, but I stopped interpreting and let desire guide onward, urging me to circle the peak with my tongue and _taste_ her skin.

"Erik…wait," she softly gasped, and I shuddered and felt the swell of frantic denials.

Pulling back only enough to release words, I shamelessly begged, "No, please, not yet. Don't make me stop. I'm not hurting you; I'm being _gentle_. Please, Christine, let me continue."

Blue eyes finally fluttered open, and I saw a malaise of sensation and emotion, all bound together in a toxic cloud. I saw desire and wanted to shout for joy, but I also saw fear and knew how deeply-seeded it stretched. I myself had made it take root during the rigor of our wedding night. Now I needed to rip it free and was half-certain the only way to achieve that was to convince her that passion's potency was nothing to stifle or dread. No, pleasure was beautiful.

So though she tensed and went stiff and horror-stricken against me, I guided a tremulous hand down her torso and sought her womanhood, the very place not even the books were in accord about. I had nothing but an urgency to please her upon my fingertips as I slid them between her quivering thighs and touched her. I didn't know what I was doing, but by God and the devil together, I was determined to learn!

She was so heated and wet. The slickness coated my fingers and made my caresses easy and light as I stroked the length of her and accepted her continued cries because not a single one sounded like 'stop'.

"Is there pain in my hands, _ange_?" I rasped out, but as my fingers crossed one particular spot, she went rigid and lost a throaty cry. I almost halted, believing I'd broken my own rule, but to my astonishment, her little hands darted out and clasped my shoulders in a restless hold, using my shape as stability when I felt her knees waver and nearly drop her. It was such an intriguing response that I was inclined to touch her the same again, studying with shrewd eyes and growing delight to feel her shudder hard against me. Well, …the books had said nothing about that!

Her body was a mass of trembling limbs, and despite my own reluctance, I drew my hand free of her wetness and caught her hips between my palms, granting the stability she lacked. With grace ever present, I urged her toward the bed and took it as encouragement when she moved willingly in my grasp.

As I eased her back onto the mattress and released her to a stable base, I immediately slid my fingers back within her wetness, shuddering to fantasize entering her with my aching body and being engulfed in her delicious heat. She gasped and muffled a cry but did not scoot away. No, she permitted and even allowed tensed thighs to gradually part and give more. But that wasn't enough for me.

With hazy eyes wandering the length of her bare body, I huskily bid, "I ache to kiss you there. May I, Christine? I long to taste you on my tongue…"

I merely spoke the yearnings as they arose, and though she gasped as if I'd been lewd and appalled her, she let her thighs fall open and never said no. I waited for disgust, certain it must come as my disfigured mouth approached her most intimate place, but perhaps it was testament to my triumph that it remained gone and as I wanted, desire rose victorious over everything else. My sweet, little Christine _ached_ as I did and not even fear matched the hunger.

I stifled a smile as my lips grazed her body, and though I was delicate, she jolted as if a shock went through her veins. How amazing it was to cause such a reaction! It made me eager to earn _more_, and with a delirious sigh, I let my impatient tongue free and teased her with the tip.

There was something absolutely overwhelming about having her spread before me, victim to my whims, writhing against the mattress with every stroke of my tingling tongue. It aroused me to heights greater than if _she_ had touched _me_. Perhaps added in was the reality that I'd never believed a woman could desire me, and here was the one I loved and adored more than anything in the world, my goddess and angel among mankind, and she was filling my ears with her cries and shifting restless hips that never broke contact in their dance. She arched, and I watched her as I lingered on the place that intensified her reaction and saw only lust and yearning. Her fingers clawed into the bed covers, her curls disheveled with the random fervency in her movements, and every feature of her glorious body seemed illuminated as I took in the details and shivered. Such exquisiteness and all _mine_.

For an instant, I stopped my ministrations, relishing her mew of disappointment, and drawing back ever so slightly, I commanded, "Christine, look at me."

Only when blue eyes ensnared and focused on mine did I whisper, thick and hoarse, "You are so delicious, every bit of you." As I formed words, my fingers raced her inner thigh and slid in and out of her wetness, unable to cease touching her there as if it were an addiction. "I want to please you, but I want you to watch me as I do it. Will you?"

It was a difficult request to make when I still called everything about my demented face perverse in desire's eyes, but she nodded mutely and obeyed, staring fixedly as I burrowed my tongue within her. Her shudder told her rising desire, violent and raw, and I was through playing games of teasing and lightness. I now knew where to lock my concentration; I acted without reservation.

Christine, good and obedient pupil as she was, held my gaze even when it became a challenge. As her peak approached, I glimpsed fear in hovering wisps, an apprehension for the unknown about to encompass her, but I never allowed her a second to dwell. I pushed her up and over its edge without a second thought and savored the shrill cry that burned its way into my memory, pleased with _myself_ for bringing it to her lungs.

Her climax was the epitome of lustful surrender, and I was proud of her for succumbing, reveling in the picture show of her pleasure and knowing I observed a necessary transition at its starting point. This would be the key to womanhood, and I savored the potential it left behind.

Breaths were shallow and uneven as she recovered with a sense of dazed astonishment in the blue gaze lingering on mine. With one more reverent and cherishing kiss to her slick folds, I crept a path up her beautiful body, brushing idle caresses as I went, and stretched out beside her on the mattress, reading her face at every moment.

"I…I didn't know," she stammered, breathlessly, and I had to deny an urge to smirk with a newfound sense of self-satisfaction.

"Sshh," I crooned gently and stroked her flushed cheek with the backs of my fingers. I could still taste her on my mouth and shuddered with the way every remnant made me crave more. "It's my fault. I should have been gentle with you the first time; I will never make that mistake again."

"And…you'll be gentle with the rest of it, too?" she demanded beneath a fierce blush.

"We need not do anything more tonight," I offered in disagreement with my throbbing manhood.

"But…you desire me."

"Of course. I _always_ desire you, and you can't even imagine how kissing you like that aroused me, but…I promised not the hurt you."

My vow was not frivolous or contingent on duty or any such nonsense. I would have gladly taken what I'd gained tonight and sought more next time, but _she_ seemed disappointed. To my shock, her little hands shook and revealed trepidation, but they landed on my collar and nimbly worked the buttons down my shirt.

"Be gentle," she whispered.

"I will, but you don't have to do this now, Christine."

"I know, but…I'm your wife."

Duty again… I huffed against the idea and would have argued, but she parted my shirt to the waist and touched me with tentative fingers and I melted to a puddle beneath her. Gentle, I'd be gentle, and then I'd have her and could surround my aching body in hers. Let her call it duty for the moment; perhaps she'd even _leave me_ after this, per my own terms, but the bliss of her touch was too much to resist. She caressed the body I despised and was ashamed of as if she _wanted_ it, and I surrendered and savored the softness of her brushing fingers.

My urgent hands moved ahead and meticulously discarded articles of clothing, any detail in the way of skin and skin. How I longed to _feel_ her! Just her body against mine would push me toward passion's brink.

As I shed clothing, her gaze was upon me, following the contours of my features as her hands trembled and held against my beating heart. "I know I'm a monster," I felt compelled to mutter as if I needed to justify my appearance. "Every bit of me is repellent and unacceptable, …hideous, but I pray I just proved that my actions can inspire your desire. Even if my body revolts you, I will keep it out of your sight, anything you wish. You can pretend I'm perfect."

Her brow lined at my choice of words, but I meant them. Let her live an illusion if it made things easier and simple. "I never asked for perfection."

"Nor did you ask for a corpse's love forced upon you, twisting every aspect of your life. Perhaps pretend is not a sin if illusion is the better reality."

The furrow remained, creasing her delicate features, but she guided a tender touch along my gaunt torso, outlining prominent rib bones and the flatness of my sternum, and she was only pensive in her examination. I wondered if disgust was just well-hidden. Yet still…her skin was its own texture of spun silk, and every glided touch trailed ribbons of flames behind.

"Christine, …how I burn! Did you ever realize you could spark such fire with your sweet, little hands?"

"But I don't know what I'm doing," she stammered, and I adored her for such a candid admission and the red glow on her flesh to follow.

I didn't tell her that I shared her affliction. I only insisted what I knew, "And that makes it more arousing yet, to know you wish to learn with me… Do you feel _anything_ to be granting me such bliss, or do you dub it as part of your _duty_? Duty has no heart attached."

"I know. …_You_ did not make it a duty."

"No," I breathed and closed my eyes an overwhelmed second as her fingers grazed my lowest rib. "I wanted to please you, and touch was a luxury and privilege I shouldn't deserve."

"You're my husband; it is your right-"

"I don't want you because it is a right, not in possession or claim, not duty or with the bindings of marriage as base. I want you because I love you and no greater reason than that. I want desire to mean more than only _mine_."

I saw the reverberation of my assertions reflected in her eyes. She _understood_ and did not draw away as her inherent warmth radiated over my body like sunshine. Her hand found my sharply cast hipbone, and I sucked in a hissed breath as she timidly followed its indent to the pale flesh of my thigh.

A tremble racked her, but she seemed convicted to be brave and follow my urging as her fingertips delicately grazed my hardness, tracing the shaft and trailing the tip. Vehement longing attacked, so primal that I fought the instinct to pin her to the bed and drive deep into her. No, I had to be as patient as I'd been when she was my muse.

"I…I touched you here earlier, …and it terrified me," she reveled in breathless sound. "You…hurt me last time."

I could not deny it, and even if a foray into biology books taught me that was normal and expected, I did not want to make guarantees I wouldn't again and risk breaking them. "It will be different this time. Do you believe me?"

To my relief, she nodded, somber and quiet as her fingers granted their hesitant caresses and tested my resistance. She waited for me to break, but I was determined to prove myself, and though I moaned and hissed at the sensation of silk fingers, I watched for permission. The second she laid back and shyly parted her thighs, I was overcome.

_Gentle, gentle_, I instructed over and over in my head, but as I began to enter her, her heated wetness drew me in and invited me deeper. I had to succumb and bury myself to the hilt in her silken folds. Oh God, it felt like heaven, the bliss of eternal paradise and knowing one was blessed.

She murmured a soft cry at my invasion, and I paused and sought her eyes, desperate for assurance.

"I'm sorry," I beseeched and cupped her cheeks in my hands to guide that needed stare. "Did I hurt you again? Christine… If you wish me to stop, I will."

But to my shudder of urgency, she arched her hips, her gaze always displaying her anxious uncertainty. It was as if she sought pain and was confused when she did not find it. One soft cry became another and another, swelling with the tentative motion of her body beneath mine, little movements that left me breathlessly gasping into her hair.

"Please tell me there is no pain," I begged with a groan, needing to create a rhythm. Musicians felt mad when tempos beat erratic; that was how I felt. Lost without my compass, unstable and deviating from necessary and normal patterns.

"Oh God," she gasped.

"What? Tell me."

"You'll think I'm ridiculous."

"Never," I promised, growing intrigued despite the fever on my skin. Words helped control my focus on anything but the wetness sheathing me and branding me as hers.

"I feel…complete," she whispered, and as if the admission was embarrassing, she set her cheek to my disfigured one and made the rest of her confessions against my ear. "When you touched me before, it felt…wonderful but empty…as if I sought your body, and it wasn't there. But now…you're inside me, and I'm whole."

Tears threatened at her words. So innocent and yet so telling. I adored them, like the romantic notions I'd never been privy to receive in my existence. _So beautiful._

"Do you realize you speak such words to your Erik?" I demanded urgently, fisting my fingers in her hair.

Her answers were kisses laid to my scars, to the malformed monstrosity of my mortal face, to the obscurities that made it no one but me atop her. With a frantic moan, I began to move and establish a fluidity that she mimicked, meeting my thrusts and encouraging more.

It felt like a dream, all hazy edges and an exquisite ecstasy too stunning to be real. She cried out, clinging to me with trembling arms, and found pleasure again with fierce kisses against my cheek. I savored every one and rocked her harder, eager to follow close behind. My pleasure was so powerful that I quivered inside out and groaned to the depths of my soul to be so weak and willingly a victim to her.

"Christine, I love you; I love you," I gasped with flustered kisses to her tiny features. "Will you leave me now that I've shown you how much? I made the offer, and I knew what it meant. …It will _kill me_, but if it is your wish, I'll let you go."

Unable to disentangle our bodies, I only lifted my disfigured face, forcing it into her line of sight as I frantically pleaded again, "I love you."

Blue eyes surveyed my face, and though I knew it was ugly, I never saw evidence of that in her gentle expression. "You are my husband by vow and choice; I won't leave you, Erik."

"Oh…" My sigh was laden in tears, and I was grateful she permitted the ferocity of my embrace. I wanted to be soldered to her forever. If only… "But…the Vicomte…"

"He will always be a friend, but I did not marry him and I do not regret it. I chose to marry _you_." She spoke, patient though my doubts must have seemed repetitive and unceasing. Her fingers lifted to graze my cheek as she bid, "I always was afraid of your love, but…is this what it is to be loved by you? Is this to be our forever?"

"It can be," I declared with intrepid adoration. "All I've ever wanted was to love you, Christine, but I didn't know how. I've never loved before you… As much as I was once your teacher, you have been my heart's. My love looks like madness without you to verify its right to exist. And marriage was nothing but a branch of insanity until you put credence behind a choice; then it was no longer a monster's ultimatum."

"You are no monster or madman," she assured, and I believed her. No one else could have made impacts and explosions with words alone, but she had a talent for striking to my core.

"Oh, Christine," I breathed and turned to kiss caressing fingertips. "You trusted me to grant a chance at desire tonight. Will you grant me the chance at _love_ as well? Let me love you as a husband and win your heart as mine. No force, no possession. I wish to be bestowed the honor because you deem me worthy."

The hint of a smile touched her lips as she whispered, "My heart is already yours, _ange_, but show me that anyway. Be a husband who loves me as freely and intently as I wish to love back."

I nodded without a second thought and covered her face in soft kisses, content to remain in her bed as lover for the rest of my days.

When she drifted off to sleep a little later, I was with her, curled in an identical shape like we were still one. No barriers existed between skin, her smooth back pressed flush to my chest, and when usually I suffered a chill and blamed it on my corpse-like makeup, beneath her covers, I was so blissfully warm and utterly _alive_. She made me worthy to be a man, worthy to be a human being, worthy to _live_.

Setting a kiss to her curl-encased crown, I whispered my devotion and awe into the silence of dreamscape and hoped she _felt_ it even if the words went unheard. I could write her a symphony of fantastic illusion with my love as inspiration, and now to know she was truly mine, I was confident there would be dreams and never nightmares again. No, now we could have happiness and forever as ours.


End file.
